FireWall

34

I parked once more in the border-crossing parking lot. It was 9:24, according to Lion King. There was no way I was going to drive straight to Eight's place; I wanted to check out the area first, just in case Carpenter had returned. If so, I would have to spend the night hanging around, waiting for him to leave again.

I locked the car and headed back to the baar, hands in pockets, head down. Approaching from the direction of the burned-out shed, I could see the BM hadn't returned, and only two of the other vehicles were still there, both now covered in thick ice.

It was one of the Cherokee jeeps that was missing. What did that mean?

Fuck it, I had no time to mess about. When would be the right time to enter the house? I'd just take my chances and go for it. All I wanted was to get the kit together and make some money as soon as possible.

I pressed the intercom button and waited, but got no answer. I pressed it again. A crackling male voice answered, not the same one as before, but just as rough. I knew the routine now and even a little Russian.

"Vorsim. Vorsim."

The static stopped, but I knew to wait, even moving out of the way after a minute or two for the main door to open. Soon bolts were being pulled on the inside.

The door swung open and there stood Eight, still in his red sweatshirt.

As he unlocked the grill, he peered anxiously out into the parking lot.

"My wheels?"

I walked in and waited as he locked up behind, still frantically scanning the parking lot.

"The car's fine. Is the guy with the BMW coming back?"

He shrugged his shoulders as I started to climb the stairs behind him.

"You'll need a pen and paper, Vorsim."

"But what about my wheels?"

I still hadn't answered when we entered the third-floor room. With no natural light the TV room was much darker, but it still smelled the same, heavy with cigarette smoke. No one was here. Nothing had changed apart from the fact that next to the plastic coated playing cards on the table, there was now a lamp, dimly glinting on the Johnnie Walker bottle, which was three-quarters empty. Three ashtrays were full and spilling butts on the once highly polished table. The TV was still on, throwing bursts of light around the other side of the room.

Through a snow lens I could see Kirk Douglas playing a cowboy with the volume down low; I could just hear the dialogue.

"Yo, Nick. The table."

He pointed at several cheap pens and sheets of lined paper scattered amongst the crap. Some had tally marks on.

I sat down and started to write a list, wondering if the marks were card-game scores or a record of today's deals.

Eight pulled up a chair opposite me. "Come on, you play. Where's the car, man?"

"Down the road."

He searched my face. "It's okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. Just let me finish this." I wanted this kit organized and to get the fuck out of there as quickly as I could. "Where is everybody?"

He moved his arms around like a break dancer on fast forward.

"Business. You know, my man, business."

I finished writing and pushed the sheet of paper over to him. He looked at it and didn't appear fazed. I was expecting lots of sucking through teeth, but the only question I got was, "Eight kilos?"

"Yeah, eight kilos." They certainly weren't the sort of kilos he normally dealt with.

"Eight kilos of what, Nikolai?" His shoulders went up and his face went down. It was obvious he didn't understand anything I'd written apart from 8kg. He'd learned to speak English from the TV, but he couldn't read it. Maybe he should have spent more time watching Sesame Street and a bit less watching NYPD Blue.

"Shall I just say what I need and you write it down?" I didn't want to embarrass him, and besides, anything to speed this up.

He smiled now there was a way out. "Telling me would be cool, yeah."

Halfway through dictating the list I had to explain what a detonator was. A few minutes later, when he'd stopped holding the pen in his fist like a child and his tongue was back in his mouth, he looked very pleased with himself.

"Okay. Cool." He jumped out of his seat, studying his handiwork and feeling very important. "Wait here, Nikolai, my man." He disappeared through the door near the fireplace.

A few seconds later I heard a much older voice roaring with laughter. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. I didn't try to see who it was; if it was the older voice who decided whether I could have it, then spying on him while he made that decision wasn't going to change anything, apart from pissing him off and making my life more difficult than it already was.

The sound of footsteps echoed from the stairwell, accompanied by volleys of quick, aggressive talking, slowly getting louder as people came up the stairs. I told myself not to worry, even though my heartbeat quickened as I listened for Carpenter.

As the voices got louder I still couldn't work out whether they were angry or that was just the way they talked.

The door burst open and I watched as the Good Fellas came in one by one, ready to grip Johnnie Walker and use him over someone's head.

There was no Carpenter. It was the same four card players, taking off their leather jackets and hats. The old one, shopping bag in hand, kept on his silver-gray fur Cossack-style number.

I stayed put, my heart beating even quicker with relief as I crumbled up the first list and put it in my pocket.

They crossed the room toward me without any acknowledgment, except from the fur-hatted older one, who shouted and waved the back of his hand at me to get the fuck out of his chair and away from the table. I got up and moved; no skin off my nose, I was there for other things, not to get macho.

From the window I watched the traffic lining up at the checkpoint. It looked even more like a movie scene now that floodlights were soaking the area in a brilliant white glow. The same couldn't be said for the lighting this side of the river.

All four now sat at the table, pouring the last of the whiskey and lighting up. There was a lot of talk from them, which drowned out the low-volume gunfight Kirk was winning on the opposite side of the room.

The old guy pulled packets of sausage and dark rye bread from the shopping bag and threw them onto the table, while the others tore open the plastic protection around the sliced meat and ripped off lumps of bread.

I watched, feeling a bit hungry myself, but I didn't imagine I'd be on the guest list.

It became obvious, as heads nodded in my direction, mixed with quick glances, that I was the subject of conversation. One of the boys said something and they all looked over. There was a little joke said and a few snickers. Then it all got serious again as they got back to eating.

I kept pretending to look out of the window and be unaware of what was going on behind me.

A chair scraped on the bare wooden floor and shoes echoed on the boards as one of them came toward me. I turned and smiled at the old guy in his hat, watching as the TV shone on him in the gloom when he passed the screen. He was facing me, but talking back to the others, looking very serious. This wasn't another leg pulling. An index finger started pointing at me as he got closer, as if to reinforce whatever he was jabbering off about. I looked down in submission and slightly turned back toward the window.

From less than a foot away he began to poke me in the back, shouting very close to my head. I turned and looked at him, confused and frightened, then looked down, just like Tom would have. I smelled garlic and alcohol, and as he continued to rant and poke, flecks of sausage hit my face. His face, creased and leathered and showing a day's stubble, was now no more than a few inches away as the fur from his hat brushed against my forehead. He bellowed at me again.

I wasn't going to react by moving or wiping away his shit from my face; it might antagonize him even more. I just stood and let him get on with it, just like I'd done at school when teachers went ballistic.

I was never scared; I knew they would finish or get bored with it quickly, so fuck 'em, let them get on with their fun so I could skip school straight afterward. It was one of the attitudes that had fucked up my life.

I moved my left hand to the window and supported myself, as I was getting the four-finger poke now, my body jerking back with each jab.

Glancing across, I could see the other three at the table, their cigarettes glowing in the semidarkness, enjoying the cabaret.

The shouting and bad breath continued.

Sounding as frightened as I could I stammered, "I am here for Eight… er… Vv-vorsim."

He mocked me. "V-v-v-orsim." Turning toward the table, he mimed injecting his arm, laughing along with the other three.

He turned back and gave me one last shove against the window. I took it and then steadied myself as he headed back for more garlic sausage.

He was obviously talking about me as he pretended to take a line from his index finger, to the accompaniment of further laughter. Let them think it; the drama was over. Now where the fuck was Eight?

I looked out of the window again, slowly wiping all the shit off my face as the floorboards echoed toward me once more. He was coming back for seconds.

He got right up on me again and gave me a push with both hands. He was fucking with me; he was having some fun, maybe taking out some frustration. The others laughed as I rode the pushes and tried to lean against the window frame, still showing no resistance, looking forlornly at the floor to appear even less of a threat.

He got more serious with each push and I began to get pissed. After one particularly hard one I stumbled backward toward the television.

He followed me, the pushes now punctuated with the odd slap round the head. I kept my face down, not wanting him to see in my eyes what I was really thinking. He kept repeating the same word over and over, then he started gesturing, rubbing fingers and pointing at my boots.

Did he want my money and Timberlands? Money I could understand, but boots?

This was getting out of control. If I was right he would be getting a lot more than he bargained for if my boots came off. I couldn't let that happen.

I held my hands up in submission. "Stop! Stop! Stop!"

He did, and waited for his cash.

I slowly reached into the inside pocket of the jacket and pulled out the insurance policy, still inside its protection. He looked at the condom and then at me, his eyes narrowing.

Untying the knot at the end, I probed inside with two fingers.

He barked a question at me, then, shouting something at the others, he grabbed the condom and roughly fished inside. Opening the thin paper and partly tearing it in the process, he turned to the table and waved it at them, as if sharing the lucky prediction in a fortune cookie.

Bending down into the light given off by Kirk on his horse, he pushed the note in front of the screen. His laughter subsided as he started to read. Then it stopped completely. Whatever the bit of paper said, it was doing the business.

He walked over to the others, looking extremely pissed as he muttered, "Ignaty. Ignaty."

I hadn't a clue what that meant and I didn't really care. They all had a read, and it had the same effect on everyone. They slowly turned their heads and stared at me across the room. I brought my hands together in front of me, not wanting to appear a threat. It was good the policy had worked, but it meant I might have to put up with their loss of face. Some people have the fuck-it factor when this sort of thing happens, and regardless of the possible fallout they'll still retaliate because their pride has been hurt. I couldn't afford to fuel that by appearing at all cocky; I still wasn't out of the woods.

Walking over to the table, my face full of respect, I put out my left hand, making sure that Lion King wasn't exposed. It wouldn't exactly help me maintain my new standing. I nodded at the sheet of paper.

"Please."

He may not have understood the word, but he knew what it meant. He handed it back, hating every second of it, and I folded it carefully and put it in my pocket. Now wasn't the time to start putting it back into a condom. "Thank you." I gave a little bow of the head and, with my heart pumping as hard as if it was forcing crude oil through my arteries, I turned my back to them and walked to the TV.

Sitting as casually as I could in the chair facing the screen, I watched Kirk still taming the Wild West, leaning forward to hear what was happening out there in the desert. My pulse was louder than the TV.

I could tell that once I was out of earshot there was going to be some very loud shouting, but for now there was just low, disgruntled murmuring behind me. Where the fuck was Eight? Not wanting to turn or look in any other direction than the screen, I sat like a child who thinks he can't be seen at bedtime if he just concentrates hard and doesn't move.

They carried on mumbling as glasses were banged with the neck of the whiskey bottle to drown their anger. My eyes were on the screen and my ears were on them.

Five minutes later, just as Kirk was about to save the girl, Eight came back into the room. I didn't understand what he was saying as he fought with the zip on his leatherette jacket, but by the look of it, we were leaving. Muttering a silent prayer of thanks, I got to my feet and tried not to show my relief.

As Eight went to the door and I passed the table, they got a respectful bow from me before I followed him downstairs at the speed of sound.

35

Eight was a happy camper the moment he caught sight of his beloved Lada in the noisy parking lot.

"Where do we go now, Vorsim?"

"An apartment." He already had the Lada's hood open.

I heard two metallic bangs as the starter motor got a reminder as to what it did for a living.

The Lada eventually fired up and he drove us both out of the parking lot and turned right, toward the traffic circle. The "komfort baars" all had enormous doormen standing under their flashing neon to control the evening's trade. Turning left this time at the traffic circle, away from the river, we drove past even more establishments and parked trucks.

The baars' lights slowly disappeared and the darkness took over again.

Now apartment and industrial buildings lined the road, in between electrical towers and shells of crumbling masonry.

Fighting with two trucks that were trying to overtake each other, both throwing up waves of ice and snow, we turned left without indicating, then left again down a narrow street, with apartments to the left and a tall wall to the right.

Eight threw the Lada into the side of the road and jumped out. "Wait here, my man."

Skirting the inevitable tower leg, he headed for the main door of one of the buildings. He stopped and checked the stenciling, gave me the thumbs up, then turned back toward the Lada to lock up. I got out and waited.

The loud, constant noise of machinery came from behind the wall as I entered a very cold, dimly lit hallway, so narrow I could easily have put my arms out and touched both walls. It stank of boiled cabbage.

Tiles were missing from the floor and the walls were painted blue, apart from the places where big chunks of plaster had fallen to the ground. Nobody had bothered to sweep them up. The apartment doors, which were one-piece sheet metal with three locks and a spy hole, looked so low that you'd have to stoop when entering.

We waited for the elevator by rows of wooden mailboxes. Most of the doors had been ripped from their hinges and the others were just left open. I'd have felt more comfortable walking into a South American jail.

The wall by the elevator was covered with a mass of hand painted instructions, all in Russian. It gave me something to look at while we listened to the motor groaning inside the shaft.

The machinery stopped with a loud shudder and the doors opened. We entered an aluminum box, its paneling dented everywhere it was possible for boots to have connected. It reeked of urine. Eight hit the button for the fourth floor and we lurched upward, the elevator stopping suddenly every few feet, then starting again, as if it had forgotten where to go. Eventually we reached the fourth floor and the doors opened into semidarkness. I let him step out ahead of me. Turning left, Eight stumbled, and as I followed I found out why: a young kid was curled up on the floor.

As the doors slammed shut again, cutting out even more of the dim light, I bent down to examine his small body, bulked out by two or three badly knitted sweaters. By his head lay two empty chip bags, and thick, dried snot hung from his nostrils to his mouth. He was breathing and he wasn't bleeding, but even in the feeble light from the ceiling bulb it was obvious that he was in shit state. Zits covered the area around his mouth and saliva dribbled from his lips. He was about the same age as Kelly; I suddenly thought of her and felt a surge of emotion. As long as I was around she would never be exposed to this kind of shit. As long as I was around… I could see the expression on Dr. Hughes' face.

Eight looked down at the boy with total disinterest. He kicked the bags, turned away, and carried on walking. I dragged the local glue head out of the way of the elevator and followed.

We turned left along a hall, Eight singing some Russian rap song and pulling a string of keys from his jacket. Reaching the door right at the end, he messed about, trying to work out which key went where until finally it opened, then groping for the light switch.

The room we entered definitely wasn't the source of the boiled cabbage stench. I could smell the heavy odor of wooden crates and gun oil; I would have known that smell anywhere. Proust's friend's childhood might have rushed back to him when he caught a whiff of madeleine cakes; this one took me straight back to the age of sixteen and the very first day I joined the army as a boy soldier in '76. Cakes would have been better.

The inevitable single bulb lit up a very small hall, no more than a couple of feet square. There were two doors leading off; Eight went through the one on the left and I followed, closing the front door behind me and throwing all the locks. Only one of the four bulbs worked in the ceiling cluster that any 1960s family would have been proud of. The small room was stacked with wooden crates, waxed cardboard boxes, and loose explosive ordnance, all stenciled with Cyrillic script. The whole lot looked very Chad-Chad that was dangerously past its use-by date.

Nearest to me was a stack of brown wooden crates with rope handles.

Lifting the lid off the top one, I recognized the dull green bedpan shapes at once. Eight, grinning from ear to ear, made the noise of an explosion, his hands flying everywhere. He seemed to know they were land mines too. "See, my man, I get what you want. Guarantee of satisfaction, yes?"

I just nodded as I looked around some more. Piles of other kit lay wrapped in brown military wax paper. Elsewhere, damp cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other had collapsed, spilling their contents onto the floorboards. Lying in a corner were half a dozen electric detonators, aluminum tubes about the size of a quarter-smoked cigarette with two eighteen-inch silver wire leads coming out of one end. The silver leads were loose, not twisted together, which was frightening stuff: it meant they were ready to act as antennae for any stray extraneous electricity-a radio wave, say, or energy from a mobile phone-to set them off and probably all the rest of the shit in there, too. This place was a nightmare. It seemed the Russians hadn't been too fussed about where this kind of stuff ended up in the early nineties.

Picking up the detonators one by one, I twisted the leads together to close the circuit, then checked out the rest of the kit, ripping open cardboard boxes. Eight did the same, either to make me think he knew what he was doing or just out of curiosity. I gripped his arm and shook my head, not wanting him to play with anything. It would be nice to get out of here with all my bits and without him losing any more fingers.

He looked hurt, so once I'd finished sorting the dets out and had stored them in an empty ammo box, I pulled out the policy to give him something to do. "What does this say, Vorsim?" I presumed he could read his own language.

As he moved under the light, I spotted some dark-green det cord. It wasn't in its handy 200-yard reel as I would have liked; there seemed to be two yards here, another ten yards there, but then I saw a partly used reel with maybe eighty or ninety yards left, which would certainly do the trick.

I put the reel of det cord to one side and went to check the other rooms. That was easy enough because each was about the size of a broom closet; there was a tiny kitchen-cum-bathroom cum-toilet arrangement and a bedroom that was even smaller. What I was looking for was plastic explosive, but there wasn't any. The only PE around here was in the antitank mines, and there were certainly enough of those to give me P for Plenty.

I returned to the main room and lifted one of them from the open box.

These were either TM 40s or 46s, I could never remember which was which; all I knew was that one was made of metal and the other of plastic. These ones were metal, about a foot in diameter and weighed around twenty pounds, of which over twelve pounds was PE. They were shaped like old-fashioned brass bed warmers, the sort that hang on stone fireplaces, alongside the horse brasses, in country inns. Instead of the long broomstick, these things had a swiveling carry handle, like on the side of a mess tin.

It was going to be a pain in the ass to get the PE out of these things, but what was I expecting?

Placing the mine on the bare floorboards, I tried to unscrew the cap, which was in the center of the top. Before laying it, all you had to do was replace the cap with a detonation device-normally a fuse and detonator combination-then stand well back and wait for a tank.

When it eventually started to move, shifting the years of grime that had formed a seal, I knew at once that it was really old ordnance. The smell of marzipan hit my nostrils. The greenish explosive had become obsolete in recent years. It still worked, it did the job, but the nitroglycerine fucked up not only armor, but also the head and skin of anyone preparing it. You were guaranteed a fearsome headache if you worked with it in a confined space and extreme pain if you got it on a cut. I was taking enough aspirin already without having to deal with that.

Eight sparked up. "Hey, Nikolai, this paper is really cool."

"What does it say?"

"First of all, his name is Ignaty. Then it says, you are his man.

Whatever you need must be yours. He protects you, my man." He looked at me. "It gets heavy. It says, "If you do not help my friend, I will kill your wife; and then, after you have been crying for two weeks, I will kill your children. Two weeks after that, I will kill you."

That's heavy shit, my man."

"Who is Ignaty?"

He gave a shrug. "He's your guy, am I right?"

No he wasn't, he was Val's. The card players had certainly recognized the name, that was for sure. I took the policy from Eight's hands and put it back in my jacket pocket. Now I knew what Liv meant about Tom receiving the kind of threat that made the Brits look a bit weak by comparison. No wonder he'd kept his mouth shut and just done his time.

Between us we carried several boxes down to the car, passing the kid still lying where I'd left him. On the last trip down, Eight locked up the apartment and we stood by the Lada with the hum and groan of the factory in the background. He was going to walk from there as he wanted to go and see a friend.

I said goodbye, feeling more than a bit sorry for him. Like everything else in this place, he, too, was just fucked over.

"Thanks a lot, mate, and I'll bring the car back in about two days."

I shook his cold hand and then grabbed the door handle as he walked away.

He called after me. "Yo, Nikolai. Hey…" There was suddenly a less-confident tone in his voice. "Can I… can I come to England with you?"

I didn't look back, just wanting to get on my way. "Why?"

"I can work for you. My English is cool."

I could hear him getting closer. "Let me go with you, man. Everything will be cool. I want to go to England and then I will go to America."

"Tell you what, I'll be back soon and we'll talk about it, okay?"

"When?"

"Like I said, two days."

He shook my hand again with all the fingers he had left. "Cool. I'll see you soon, Nikolai. It'll be cool. I will sell my car, and… and get new clothes."

He virtually skipped back up the road, waving at me, thinking about his new life as I gave the starter motor some encouragement, fired it up, and did a three-point turn to back out onto the street, passing Eight on the way.

I'd only driven a hundred yards when I stopped and put the car in reverse. Fuck it, I couldn't do this.

As I drew alongside and wound down the window he greeted me with a big smile. "What's up, my man?"

"I'm sorry, Vorsim, I can't take you" I corrected myself "will not take you to England."

His shoulders and face slumped. "Why not, man. Why not? You just said, man…"

I felt an asshole. "They won't let you in. You're Russian. You need visas and all that stuff. And even if they do, you won't be able to stay with me. I don't have a house and I haven't got any work I can give you. I'm really sorry, but I can't and I won't do it. That's it, mate. I'll drop the car off in two days."

And that was it. I wound the window up and headed back into the center of town, so I knew where I was and could pick up the main Narva-Tallinn drag again.

I could have lied to him, but I remembered as a kid all the trips that my parents were going to take me on, all the presents I was going to be given, all the promises of nice vacations and all the rest of the shit that had never happened. It was just said to keep me quiet. I couldn't have let Eight get all psyched up, burning bridges, and all for nothing. Liv was right: Sometimes it's better to fuck people off with the truth.

I found my bearings in town and headed west. My destination was a hotel room where I could prepare all the shit I had in the trunk.

I was still feeling quite sorry for Eight; not for dumping him, because I knew it was the right thing to do, but because of what the future held for him. Absolute jack shit.

A gas station appeared, exactly the same as the one in Tallinn, very blue, and as clean, bright, and out of place as an alien spacecraft. I pulled in and filled up. Parking off to one side of the building, I went to pay just as the two staff had started to think they had their first runner of the night.

I was the only customer they had. There was a small section in their shop that actually sold car parts; the rest of the space was given over to beer, chocolate, and sausages. I picked up five blue nylon tow ropes-their entire stock-and all eight rolls of black insulation tape on display, together with a cheap multi tool set that would probably break the second time it was used. Finally, I picked up a flashlight and two sets of batteries, and two of the small rectangular ones with terminals on top. I couldn't think of anything else I needed just now, apart from some chocolate and meat and a couple of cans of orange soda.

The guy who took my money had more zits on his head than brain cells in it. He was trying to work out the change, even though the register had told him. Eventually he handed me my shopping bags; I wanted some more and pointed. "More? More?" It took a few seconds of miming and a couple of small coins, but I came out with half a dozen spares.

It was sausage and chocolate time. I sat in the car with the engine running, stuffing my face as I looked out at the main drag. Beyond it was a massive poster site showing me the wonders of Fuji film, covering the whole side of a building as the trucks screamed past. I didn't blame them; I was in a hurry to get out of town, too.

Feeling sick after eating everything I'd bought, I rejoined the mayhem on the road. My destination was Voka, a coastal town to the north, between Narva and Kohtla-Jarve, where I was going to prepare for the attack tomorrow afternoon. I had chosen Voka for no other reason than that I liked the name, and that, since it was on the coast, there was probably a better chance of finding a room.

Voka turned out to be just what I was expecting, a small beach town with one main drag. Maybe it had been a bit of a hot spot during the Soviet era, but from what I could see of it in my headlights and the occasional functioning streetlight, it was now very tired and flaky, the Estonian equivalent of those Victorian places in Britain that reached their expiration date in the seventies when everyone started getting on planes to Spain. When the Russians had packed their bags a few years earlier, this place, too, must have rolled over and died.

There was no one about; everyone was probably at home watching the end of another Kirk Douglas movie.

I drove slowly along the coast road with the Baltic on my left and the car rocking with the wind off the sea.

There weren't many lights on in the apartments to my right, just the glow now and then of a TV.

Eventually I found a hotel with a sea view. At first glance it had looked more like a four-story apartment building, until I saw the small, flickering neon sign to the left of its double glass doors. As I locked the Lada, waves crashed onto whatever sort of beach was behind me, and the wind buffeted my jacket and hair.

The fluorescent lights in the hallway nearly blinded me. It was like walking into a television studio, and almost as hot. A TV blared away somewhere in Russian. I was starting to catch the intonation quite well.

The sound came from in front of me. I walked along the hall until I found its source. At the bottom of a flight of stairs, a sliding window was set chest high into the wall. Behind it sat an old woman, glued to the screen of an old black-and-white TV.

There was plenty of time to study her while trying to attract her attention. She wore thick woolen tights and slippers, a chunky black cardigan, a gaudy flowery dress, and crocheted woolen hat. While she watched the TV, she spooned lumpy soup out of what looked like a large salad bowl. The TV had a coat hanger for an antenna that seemed to be the law around here. It reminded me of the times I had to dance around the room with an indoor antenna in my hand so my stepdad could follow the horse racing.

She finally noticed me, but didn't bother with a greeting or asking what I wanted. Nodding politely and smiling, I pointed at a sheet of paper taped to the window, which I presumed was the rate.

"Can I have a room, please?" I asked in my favorite Australian accent.

I was getting rather fond of my Crocodile Dundee impression. It was wasted on her.

There was a clatter of footsteps from the wooden staircase and a couple appeared, both dressed in long overcoats. He was a small, skinny guy in his late forties, slightly balding on top, but with the rest of his hair greased back in the style that Eastern Europeans, for some reason, think looks marvelous, and a big droopy mustache. They walked past without giving me or the old woman a second glance. The woman, I noticed, was at least twenty years younger than Baldy, and considerably less smelly. He had a body odor that no deodorant could tame.

The old woman handed me a towel the size of a tea cloth and a set of what had once been white sheets. Muttering something, she held one finger in the air, then two. I guessed she meant number of nights. I showed her one.

She nodded, writing down some numbers which I took to be the price.

EEK150 for the night about $10. A bargain. I couldn't wait to see the room. I gave her the money and she put the key, attached to a six-inch length of 2x4, on top of the sheets and got back to her soup and TV. I didn't get to learn the Estonian for "have a nice day."

I walked up the stairs and found Room 4. It was bigger than I'd expected, but every bit as drab. There was a dark veneered chip board wardrobe, three brown furry nylon blankets on the stained, multicolored mattress, and a pair of old, saliva-stained pillows. I was surprised to find a small fridge in the corner. When I checked I found it wasn't plugged in, but it was still probably worth an extra sur from the Estonian Tourist Board. Next to it, sitting on a brown veneered table, was a seventies-style TV, also unplugged. The carpet was made up of two different colors of hard-wearing office-type stuff, in dark brown and what might once have been cream. The wallpaper was bubbling in places, with brown damp stains rounding off the decor. But the piece de resistance was a cushioned corner unit and coffee table, set off by a large, triangular thick glass ashtray. The beige nylon seating was heavily soiled and the coffee table had cigarette burns all around the edge. The room was cold and it was obviously up to the guest to put the heaters on.

To the right of the main door was the bathroom. I'd check that out later. First, I bent over one of the two electric heaters. It was a small, square three-bar thing on the door side of the bed. Plugging it in, I threw the switch and the elements started to heat up, filling the air with the acrid smell of burning dust.

The second heater, nearer the window, was a more elaborate, decorative model, with two long bars and, above that, a black plastic log effect with a red background. I hadn't seen one since I was at my auntie's house, age seven. I plugged it in, too, and watched as its red bulb lit up beneath the plastic and a disc started to spin above it to provide a flame effect. It was almost better than the TV.

I went into the bathroom. Its walls and floor were tiled, mostly brown, but others, blues and reds, had replaced some of the broken ones in the days when broken ones were replaced. The management's policy had evidently changed in recent years.

There was another two-bar electric heater on the wall above the bath, as well as an ancient, oval-shaped gas water heater with a visible pilot light and a long steel tap which swiveled so you could fill either the bath or the sink. I was expecting the worst, but when I turned the tap on the pilot light became a raging flame, with sound effects to match. I was jealous. I wanted one in my house. The water was instantly hot, which was good news; I'd be needing a lot of that soon. Turning it off, I went back into the bedroom, where the heaters were starting to do their stuff. Pulling the curtain aside, I had a look out to sea. I couldn't see a thing, except snow swirling in the light spilling from the window.

I closed the curtains and went down to unload the car, starting with two mines in a box and the my purchases from the gas station.

The old woman never looked up once as I came and went, either because she knew better than to enquire into a customer's business, or because she was genuinely gripped by the dubbed version of the sixties Batman TV series.

Once back in the room I started running the bath, slowing the flow to a steamy trickle. I used a screwdriver from the multi tool set to help remove the two mine caps and could smell the green PE the moment the first came off.

Holding each mine in turn under the tap until it filled with hot water, I then lowered them into the bath, still letting the water run so that it would eventually cover them. Then I went down to the car and collected another two. They were heavy and I didn't want the drama of dropping one. It took three trips in all to get everything upstairs.

On the final trip I took another newspaper from the back seat and covered the windshield.

I kept unscrewing mine caps until all six were in the bath in two layers, representing a total of over seventy pounds of PE. Molten explosive would have been injected into the dull green casings at the factory and left to set to an almost plastic state; I'd have to wait for the hot water to soften it again before I could scrape it out.

Back in the bedroom I turned on the television in time to see Batman and Robin tied together in a giant coffee cup, an animated American voice-over telling me I'd have to wait until next week for the next exciting instalment, followed by the Russian translation which said they really couldn't give a fuck what happened.

I got hold of the reel of det cord, which looked just like a green clothesline, except that instead of string inside the plastic covering, there was high explosive. This stuff would have the job of initiating the two charges I was going to construct with the PE once I'd got it out of the mines. I cut off about the first foot of cord with my Leatherman; it was probable that the explosive core had been affected by the climatic conditions and/or age, but if so, the contamination normally wouldn't have penetrated further than six inches. The reel then went to the window side of the bed; only prepared kit would go this side from now on. That way things wouldn't get confusing as I became more tired.

Without any announcement, Charlie's Angels suddenly burst onto the screen. I hoped it was the series with Cheryl Ladd. Farrah Fawcett never did it for me when I was a kid. As the monotone Russian translation started up I went back into the bathroom. The water level still had a way to go as the steaming water trickled out of the water heater.

Time to check the batteries. They were normal rectangular 9volt ones with press-stud tops for the positive and negative terminals, the sort that are used in smoke detectors or toys. One of them would be the initiation device, providing the electrical charge that would run along the firing cable, which I still had to obtain. It would then initiate the detonator, which would fire up the det cord, and, in turn, the charges. All this could only happen if the power from the battery was strong enough to overcome the resistance from the firing cable and det.

You attach the firing cable to a flashlight bulb; if it lights up when you transmit power along the length of firing cable, you've got enough juice to make the thing go bang.

It was getting warm enough to take my jacket off now. I took the insurance policy out of the inside pocket; it was looking a bit the worse for wear, so I folded it neatly, fished around for the condom, and stuck it into the small key pocket on the front right-hand side of my jeans.

Next, I pulled the plug off the bedside lamp and ripped the other end of the cord out of the lamp base, ending up with about five feet of firing cable-not enough. I needed to be close to the explosion, but five feet was suicidally close. The fridge cord gave me another five.

The bath ought to have been almost full by now. I went and checked just as Charlie's Angels, dressed up as old women but still looking very glamorous and without a hair out of place, were about to infiltrate an old folks' home on some secret mission.

All the mines were covered with hot water, so I turned off the faucet.

I couldn't see a toilet brush anywhere, but there was a rubber plunger.

Using its handle to prod the PE in one of the mines, I found it was still too hard.

Footsteps in the hall signaled that the hotel had some new guests.

There was a female giggle and lusty Russian male talk as they passed, then I heard the door next to mine bang shut. Stretched out on the bed watching Charlie's Angels free the world of evil, I connected the two lengths of flex and taped them up.

Ten feet of firing cable was still not enough. The trouble was, I wouldn't know how much I needed until I was on target, and I'd have to err on the side of safety. I wished I had about a hundred yards of the stuff, but where would I find some at this time of night?

Tomorrow would be too late; I wouldn't have enough time to mess around looking for a hardware store. I had to make more of my own, so it was bye-bye, Cheryl. Due to the positioning of the wall outlet, the power line for the TV was quite long; in total I ended up with about eighteen feet of cable.

With the TV now off I could hear the romance developing next door.

There were plenty of oohs and aahs, a bit of giggling and a few slaps on bare flesh. I didn't need the dubbing.

I joined the last section of wire together using the Western Union pigtail method. Chinese laborers used it to repair downed telegraph lines in the Wild West; it's basically a reef knot with the tail ends twisted together. It not only guarantees conductivity, but makes it unlikely the connection will get pulled apart.

The three lengths were all of different thicknesses and metals, but as long as they conducted electricity that was all I was worried about. I wrapped the copper wires at one end around the flashlight bulb and taped it in place. Now all I had to do was complete the circuit with the two steel wires at the other end of the cable on the battery terminals and bang, perfect, the bulb glowed.

I repeated the process with the other battery, and both worked for now.

If they both failed on target and I didn't get detonation, I'd have to switch to plan B and put on the bandanna.

Untaping the wire from the bulb, I twisted the two copper wires together, then the two steel wires at the other end, and earthed it against the back of the fridge. That would take away any electricity still in the cable; the last thing I wanted was to connect the wires to a detonator and have the thing explode immediately. That wouldn't be a good day out.

The coil of firing cable joined the det cord on the window side of the bed and I placed the two batteries on top of the TV. You never keep the initiation device with the detonators or the rest of the equipment; the fuckup factor is never far away, and I wasn't taking any chances.

The only time all the equipment should come together is when you are going to detonate the charges, a lesson one or two Provisional IRA boys learned the hard way back in the eighties.

The foreplay was over next door and they were getting down to the heavy stuff. Either she was really enjoying it or she was going for an Oscar as the bed tried to bang itself through the wall and into my bathroom.

When I checked the mines, the water in the bath was rippling with the vibrations coming through the wall. There was still a while to go before I could start digging out the PE; to use the time productively, I took a sheet of toilet paper with me, put my jacket back on and walked out into the hall. The shag fest reached a rousing crescendo as I placed a small strip of the toilet paper by the bottom hinge and closed the door on it, checking there was just enough paper to be seen.

Silence fell next door as I left my neighbors to their cigarettes and Charlie's Angels and headed for the stairs.

The old woman was still glued to her TV. Frozen air clawed at my lungs as I peeled the newspaper off the Lada's windshield. The engine turned over sluggishly after I'd zapped the starter motor, but eventually it sparked up. I knew how it felt.

37

I cruised slowly around town looking for the materials I needed to construct the explosive charges, attacking another four aspirin to sort out the headache that I'd developed after playing with the mines.

Spotting a row of dumpsters behind a small parade of shops, I pulled in and sifted through the old bits of cardboard packaging, tins and rags.

There was nothing that would do for me, apart from a partly broken wooden pallet resting against the wall. Three sections, each about a yard long, were soon in the back of the car while a dog, cooped up in one of the shops, barked its head off in frustration at not being able to get at me. One section was going to help me get over the wall, the other two were going to prop the charges in place on target.

Lights were off and curtains were drawn as I left the area in search of more stuff, driving through the heavy mist that rolled in from the sea.

After ten minutes of patrolling the ghost town I saw a building that was worth a closer look. Trash was piled up outside it, but it was the structure itself that made me curious.

It turned out to be an air-raid shelter, built in the days when they were expecting Uncle Sam's hairy-assed B-52 bombers to come and dump on them big time. There was a concrete stairwell down to below ground level and a thick metal door, which was padlocked. The stairwell was full of wind-blown litter and heavier stuff that had been fly-tipped, and it was in among all this that I found some expanded styrofoam packaging. I selected two pieces, each just under a yard square. The corners were higher than the middle, which was contoured to fit the shape of whatever it had been made to protect; here and there holes had been punched to save material and give the structure a bit more strength. I now had the frames for the charges.

It reminded me of having to make claymore antipersonnel mines out of ice-cream cartons before going into Iraq during the Gulf War.

The last item I needed was a brick, and in a place like this I didn't have to look far for one.

Back at the hDtel, the old woman had deserted her post and the TV was running what looked like a Russian talk show, with the host and his guests talking at each other very glumly. It looked as though they were trying to decide which one of them should commit suicide first.

I walked up the stairs with my finds in my arms, feeling pleased that I had everything I needed for the attack and could now sit tight.

The old woman had just come out of the door next to mine and was heading along the hall away from me with rumpled sheets in her arms.

The room was probably rented by the hour, and she was cleaning up after the latest event.

With the faint sound of the talk show in the distance, I checked the telltale. It hadn't moved. I opened the door and waited for the heat to hit me.

As I took the first step inside, I knew straight away that something wasn't right. The plastic log-effect fire wasn't dancing round the walls, but it had been when I left.

I dropped the stuff I was carrying. The brick hit the carpet as I started to step back into the hall. And that was the last thing I did for a while, apart from trying to get off the bedroom floor, only to get a blow to the kidneys that put me back down. It was grit-theteethandcurl-up time. There was no time to draw breath. I was roughly turned over and a weapon muzzle was pushed hard into my face. I felt my jacket being pulled up as a hand frisked me.

Once I had curled up again and played nearly dead, I risked opening my eyes. The oldest of the Good Fellas towered above me, wearing his silver fur hat and black leather coat.

I could also see another pair of legs belonging to someone else, also in black. The two men stood on either side of me now, whispering aggressively to each other with lots of arm movement and pointing at the dickhead on the floor.

I made the most of this time while they waffled, trying to take long deep breaths but finding I couldn't. It was too painful. I had to get by with short, sharp gasps, trying to minimize the pain in my stomach.

Then I looked up and saw Carpenter. Our eyes locked and he spat at me.

I wasn't scared, I was just depressed that this should be happening to me, so much so that I couldn't even be bothered to wipe the mucus from my face. I just lay there not really caring. How had Carpenter even known I was here? Fuck it, who cared? I'd been dropped by two very pissed-off people and I didn't know if I was ever going to leave the room alive.

They pulled me up by my armpits, one man on each side, and propped me up on the end of the bed. Pushing my hands into my armpits, I tried to bend forward and get my head down onto my thighs to protect myself, to be the damaged gray man that was no threat to anybody.

It wasn't going to happen. I took a blow on the right side of my face, which took me straight down onto the bed. I didn't need to pretend; it had done me some damage.

Expecting more, I curled up on my side. Starbursts did their best to black me out as pain scorched through my body. I could feel myself starting to lose it, and I really couldn't let that happen. I worked hard to keep my eyes open. I was a bag of shit, but I knew that I had to pull myself together or I'd be dead.

The two of them were still talking, arguing I couldn't tell which in the background somewhere. I just lay there taking short, sharp breaths, keeping my eyes open and coughing blood onto the furry blanket.

My jaw joint was grinding on itself. I probed with my tongue and discovered one of my side teeth moving as a numb, swollen feeling developed on the right side of my face. I felt as if I'd just had a session with a psychopathic dentist.

With my head on the bed, I was level and in a direct line with the coffee table. My fuzzy vision locked on to the large glass ashtray.

I switched my attention to Carpenter and the old guy. They didn't even stop their waffle as a couple of people passed our door, heading toward the end of the hall. The older guy had a pistol in his hand; Carpenter had his weapon in a shoulder holster, which I could see as he put his hands on his hips and pulled back on his unzipped jacket.

They were both pointing at me. Carpenter seemed to be explaining who I was, or at least what I had done.

I could also see now what the older guy had hit me with. His hands could have done the job just as well, judging by the size of them, but he'd opted for a leather strop that looked like a big dildo, and which was probably filled with ball bearings.

The two of them were a couple of yards to one side of me, and the ashtray was one yard to the other. Both men were still more interested in their argument than in me, but would no doubt come to a decision very soon as to how to kill me probably slowly if Carpenter had anything to do with it.

I had to act, but I also knew that first I had to take a few seconds to sort myself out. I was still fazed; I'd have to break my actions down into stages in my head or I was going to fuck up and get killed.

I squinted at the heavy lump of glass on the table that might save my life and, taking a deep breath, I sprang off the bed. Keeping my head down, I charged at the two black shapes in front of me. All I needed was to get them off balance to give me just a few seconds. Holding out my arms, I bulldozed into the two lots of black leather and, not waiting to see what happened to them, I swung my head round and looked for the ashtray. A wheezy gasp came from behind me as they made contact with the wall.

Eyes still fixed on the glass shape on the table, my body pivoted as my legs started to move toward it. Muffled shouts came from behind. That didn't matter, the ashtray did. If they were fast enough to recover, or I was too slow to react, I would never know about it.

Slapping down my palm, as if swatting a fly, I gripped the ashtray. My body was still facing the table with the two guys behind me. Swinging my head round, I focused on the old guy's now hatless head. My body turned as I took the three paces toward him, brandishing the fistful of glass in the air like a knife.

I closed in, ignoring Carpenter as he came toward me from the right.

The one I wanted was the old guy, the one with the pistol in his hand.

His face didn't register surprise or fear, just anger, as he pushed himself off the wall and raised his weapon.

My eyes were fixed on his face as I swung the ashtray downward, making contact above his cheekbone. His skin folded over just below his eye, then split open. He fell with a scream, his body banging against my legs on the way down. Stage three was complete.

I heard, rather than saw, the black shape from the right, almost on top of me.

I didn't have a stage four. It was open house now. Not even bothering to turn and look at Carpenter, I just lashed out wildly. The thick glass hammered against his skull twice on his way down, both times with such force that my arm jarred to a halt as I made contact.

I jumped onto his chest and continued to rain blows onto the top of his head. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I'd lost it, but I didn't care. I was just remembering the way this fucker had kept firing rounds into the woman in the elevator, and the bastards who'd ruined Kelly's life by hosing down her family in Washington.

Three times there was a crunching, cracking sound as his skull gave way.

I raised my hand, ready to hit again, but stopped myself. I'd done enough. Thick, almost brown blood oozed from his head wounds. He had lost function in his eyes and had a vacant stare, wide open and dull, pupils fully dilated. The blood spread onto the carpet, which soaked it up like blotting paper.

Still sitting astride him I rested both hands on his chest, not enjoying the fact that I'd lost control. To survive, you sometimes have to get really revved up, but losing it completely, I didn't like that.

I turned to check the old guy. The strop and the handgun were on the floor, and so was he, curled up, holding his hat against his face like a dressing and moaning to himself. His legs flailed weakly on the carpet.

Slowly hauling myself to my feet, I kicked away both weapons. The gun looked like a.38 special revolver, the short-barreled sort used by 1930s American gangsters.

Pulling his jacket off his shoulders and midway down his arms, I dragged him over the top of Carpenter and into the bathroom, leaving his bloodstained fur hat behind. It was obvious now why he always wore it: only a few wisps of hair covered his head.

He was still moaning and probably feeling quite sorry for himself, but he was alive and that meant he was a threat. My jaw was aching as I jolted up and down with the effort of dragging him, but at least my heart rate was starting to calm. There was no other option, he had to die. I wasn't happy about it, but I couldn't leave him here alive when I set off for the Maliskia compound tomorrow. He could compromise everything I was here for.

I let go of him and he slumped onto the tiled bathroom floor. I turned on the hot water and the water hearter surged into action.

The extent of the injury to his face was now clear to me. A two inch furrow was gouged in his cheek, wide enough to put a couple of fingers in. Beneath the mess of torn flesh gleamed an area of exposed white cheekbone.

A check of his wallet as he lay and groaned to himself revealed all the normal stuff. Only the money was of interest, both Russian and Estonian; once that was tucked into my jeans I went back into the bedroom.

Stepping back over Carpenter, I picked up the.38 special from the floor and one of the furry blankets.

I pulled back the hammer so the weapon was cocked. When I came to squeeze the trigger I didn't want the hammer moving all the way back before coming forward to fire the round; it might get caught in the blanket.

I walked back into the bathroom and, not even looking at his face in case his eyes were on me, I unceremoniously jammed the muzzle into the blanket and onto his head, quickly wrapped the furry nylon around the weapon and fired.

There was a dull thud and then a crack as the round exited his head and shattered the tile beneath it. I let the blanket fall and cover his face, and listened. There was no apparent reaction to the round from outside the room; this was the sort of place where you didn't ask too many questions, even if there was a gang fuck going on next door. The only things my senses picked up were the noise of the water heater and the smell of burned nylon.

I turned the water off and the water heater died as I moved into the bedroom. I dug out Carpenter's wallet and tucked his money into my jeans, too. His weapon was still in its shoulder holster, but only just. I realized how lucky I had been. Another fraction of a second and it could have been a totally different story. The pistol was a Makharov, a Russian copy of James Bond's Walther PPK, and only good as a close-up, personal protection weapon, perfect for when someone got in a huff with you in a komfort baar. At longer range it would be more lethal to throw the thing at them. No wonder its nickname in certain quarters was "the disco gun." I decided to keep this one. The pistol grip on these Russian versions was bulky, making it awkward to get a firm hold first time when drawing down with small hands like mine, but it was more use than the.38 special.

Carpenter's blood was thickening on the carpet, which couldn't absorb the amount leaking out of him. Pulling another blanket off the bed, I trod it down around his head to try and stop it seeping through the floorboards. I ended up grabbing his head and wrapping it in the blanket.

I opened the main door into the hall, checked left and right, then had a look at the intact telltale. Why had it failed me, why was it still in place? I could see the answer at once: It was stuck to the door frame. The sponge-strip draft protector must have been put there soon after the stuff was invented; it was now brown and gooey with age.

Lesson learned. Don't mix telltales with old draft protectors.

Switching the fire back on, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.

38

I used the toilet-plunger handle again to prevent burning my hands, wedging it into a mine cap and fishing it out, then turning it upside down to drain.

I carried it like that into the bedroom, slipping on the old man's hat on the way. The blood hadn't soaked in as much as it had into the carpet or blanket, which probably meant the fur was real and was resisting penetration.

Laying the mine on the coffee table, I crossed the room to open the window, letting in the cold sea air big time. Waves were breaking on the other side of the road.

The explosive, which had been more or less rigid plastic, was now soft enough to extract and manipulate. I began to scoop, having first put a shopping bag over each hand to prevent the nitro from entering my blood stream via cuts on my hands or straightforward absorption. It wouldn't kill-hospitals use nitroglycerine on heart-attack victims-but it would give me a massive fuck-off headache.

By the time I'd finished the room stank of marzipan, and in front of me on the table was ten pounds of what looked like green, lumpy plasticine. It had hardened a little as it cooled, but I knew that once I played with it in my hands a bit it would become quite pliable again. The remaining two pounds or so of PE were stubbornly sticking to the sides of the mine and were too difficult to get out, so I just left it.

With the bags rustling on my hands I worked away at it as if kneading dough, trying to keep my head turned so the fumes didn't get to me so quickly. Even so, it made me feel dizzy and nauseous, though that might also have something to do with the way Carpenter and the old guy had greeted me at the door.

Once I'd got it all nice and malleable in three equal-sized balls, I pulled off the rubber part of the plunger and used the handle as a rolling pin to flatten them out. The smell of marzipan reminded me of being a kid at Christmas, skipping the icing sugar and going straight for the yellow stuff underneath.

As I kept quiet, the room adjacent to my bedroom was about to become a love nest. There was the rattle of a key, the door opened and closed and then I heard voices, but this wasn't fun sex talk, this was heavy, serious stuff.

I kept rolling as the hooker ran through her repertoire of moans and sighs, though not giggly ones, like before; this sounded more like grand opera. The sounds of male grunting and rhythmic humping started almost straight away; poor girl, she probably hadn't even had time to put down her order of fries.

When the dough was about a quarter of an inch thick and the diameter of a medium-sized pizza, I used the ice scraper to cut strips about two inches wide, getting six per base. That done, I stepped over the head in the blood-soaked blanket, went into the bathroom, and pulled the plug to refill the bath with more hot water.

The old man's eyes were fixed open in an astonished stare. I ignored him as I turned on the tap and tested the water, as if for a baby's bath, wishing I could stay in here because the water heater noise drowned out the duet next door, but there were five more mines to be dealt with. Leaving the bath still running, I went back to the bedroom with another piece of dripping Soviet war machinery hanging off the plunger.

It was now so cold in the room that my nose was beginning to drip.

Wiping it carefully on my jacket sleeve to make sure I got none of the marzipan on my exposed skin, I sat back down with more PEin-a-can and set about digging out the contents.

Plastic explosive is nothing more than a substance which, when detonated, undergoes almost instantaneous decomposition. Until that moment, most forms of the compound are harmless and waterproof. You can even burn some types of PE and it won't explode; it'll just help you make a pot of tea very quickly. When detonated, however, it delivers a shattering blow known as brisance, and that is why it can be used to cut through materials as strong as steel.

I still had another four mines to empty and was gagging for that tea, but I didn't think they did room service here; not the kind I wanted, anyway. I just got on with it, gouging out the PE, rolling and cutting two-inch-wide strips, serenaded by the bear next door, who sounded as though he was heading for his final grunt. I hoped he might follow it with a spell of hibernation.

An hour or so later, with all of the PE now in strips, I opened the knife blade of the Leatherman and rested it over the hot bar of the heater. I then laid the first piece of foam on the bed, base down.

Carpenter was pissing me off, as I had to keep stepping over him, so I pulled at his feet, his head making a dull thud as it hit the thin carpet as it moved out of the blanket, and dragged him closer to the door. Once there, I rearranged the sodden blanket once more around his head and wiped my hands on his black crew neck.

Using the towel as an oven glove, I lifted the hot Leatherman from the heater and quickly sliced off all the little lumps, bumps, and molded corners from the upper side of the foam. What I was left with was a yard square, one side naturally flat, the other cut more or less level.

Next I used the hot blade to mark out a two-inch wide channel all the way round, following the line of the square and about three inches in from the edge. The smell of burning Styrofoam was even more overpowering than the marzipan.

Holding the blade at an angle, I started cutting an inverted Vin the channel, ending up with what looked like a trench all around the foam square, with four very long bars of Toblerone lying in the bottom of it, peaks upward. The strips of explosive would be laid along the sides of the Toblerone, and when the frame charge was complete, it would be the flat side that would ultimately be placed against the target.

You can't drop a bridge by just dangling big sticks of dynamite against it. To cut through whatever you're trying to destroy concrete, brick, or steel with the least amount of PE and maximum effect, you have to channel the brisance by using the Munroe Effect. Because of the thirty-degree angle made by the peak of the Toblerone facing the target, the majority of the detonation force would surge toward the imaginary chocolate bar's base and beyond. Had the Toblerone been made of copper, the brisance would be able to penetrate many inches of steel, because the detonation would melt the copper and take most of the molten flow forward with it, cutting through the target. I didn't have copper, just styrofoam, but there was enough force in the PE alone to do the job required of it.

My nitro headache was really pounding now. I downed another four aspirin; only four more left.

As I went back to my cutting, the sound of an argument between two men filtered through from the hall. They were soon joined by a woman, who seemed to be charming them down.

The door opposite mine opened and closed and there was silence. I waited for the customary sound effects to start in the room opposite, but all I got was more argument, the woman now chipping in her two EEKs' worth. When I'd finished cutting the Toblerone shape all the way round the styrofoam, the base of the triangle was just over an inch and a half from the base of the foam. This was the "stand-off," which would give the Munroe Effect space to gather enough force to cut through the target's brickwork.

Now all I had to do was lay the explosive along each side of the Toblerone and over its peak, making sure the strips were molded together seamlessly to make one big charge. Protecting my hands with the plastic bags once more, I started placing, pressing and pinching, as if shaping and joining pastry. The three-way argument was still going on opposite; I didn't mind, it was nice to have neighbors who were talking instead of grunting and throwing the bed around.

Once the Toblerone was covered by two layers of PE, I got some det cord and cut off two lengths, one about three feet long, the other about five. Putting two knots into one end of each length, I pressed these into the PE that lay over the Toblerone, on two opposite sides of the square. To keep the knots in place, two off cuts of PE were pressed down on top so the knots were well and truly molded into the charge.

The reason for having two sites for the det cord was that I needed the detonation to come from two directions simultaneously so the charge was more efficient. To make sure that happened, I tightly taped together, over a distance of about six inches, the two different lengths of det cord so that, from the binding to the charge, they were both of equal length. Trailing from the site of the binding was the two-foot surplus from the longer piece; that bit was called the det tail. As the shock wave traveled along the det tail and reached the binding, it would also detonate the second, shorter length of det cord. The two shock waves would then travel down toward the charge at the same speed and distance, therefore reaching the Toblerones on two opposing sides simultaneously. The Munroe Effect would direct the force of the detonation toward the base of the Toblerone, gathering energy as it traveled the inch and a bit through the foam before impacting the target. All being well, I should be left with a gaping hole about a yard square in the wall of the target house.

I was still in the process of taping over the Toblerone to keep it in the foam when two male voices, drunk and laughing, came up the stairs and passed my door, going into the room on the other side of the bathroom.

I still had another charge to make, so I put the knife back on the heater as my two new neighbors laughed, joked, and turned the TV on loudly. At least it drowned out the three still entertaining themselves opposite.

It took me thirty minutes to complete the second charge, done to the accompaniment of an American comedy, dubbed, of course. I preferred the jokes in Russian.

To make them easier to carry, I sandwiched both sets of charges together so the Toblerone peaks were facing each other, storing the attached det cord in between. I wrapped one of the tow ropes around to keep it all together, then slid two of the pallet sections, taken from behind the shops, under the rope. I'd also secured the reel of unused det cord to the pack by running the rope through its center while wrapping it round. Everything I'd be needing on target was now together, and the whole thing looked like a badly packed Boy Scout's knapsack.

There were one or two other little jobs to do before I could get out of here. Gathering together the remaining blue nylon tow ropes, I tied them together until there was one rope about thirty yards long, adding extra knots so that there was one every yard. One end was then tied onto the rope, which had been wrapped around the charges.

Next I picked up the third length of pallet wood. It was MI9 time again as I cut a groove all round one end, about three inches in from the top, around which I secured the free end of the rope attached to the charges. Holding the brick against the un roped end of the wood, so that its longest edge was parallel to the plank's, I wrapped the towel around both and secured it with yards of insulating tape. All the equipment was now prepared.

The Lion King told me it was 3:28, in theory too early to leave, but I didn't know who else knew that Carpenter and the old man had come to visit. The threesome started arguing yet again, this time probably about payment, as I took the charges, draped in a blanket, down to the car.

39

Saturday. December 18,1999 In the pitch-dark of the afternoon I drove west toward Tallinn on the main drag, turned left to Pussi and headed once again over the railway track and toward the target, passing the sad shacks where people were holed up for the winter.

In the twelve hours since leaving the hotel I'd been cruising around, stopping only a couple of times to fill up with gas. Anything to keep the heater going.

On my way out I'd paid the old woman for another two nights, so with any luck there should be no need for her to come and check the room.

Tented stalls were dotted along the roads like miniature service stations, the steam that poured from their vents making them look like refugee-camp field kitchens. When I stopped to buy coffee and pastries, it actually helped to have a swollen mouth with visible bruising, because I could get away with just mumbling and pointing.

The problem came when I tried to eat and drink; my tooth was killing me and these places didn't sell Ibuprofen. My last four aspirins had gone hours ago.

I'd kept Carpenter's weapon on me, and the.38 special was in the glove compartment. Neither of them had spare rounds.

Now, sliding slowly along the single-lane road, my headlights picked up the concrete wall of the target on my left. Nothing appeared to have changed; there were still no lights or movement and the gates were still closed. Parking in the same driveway as before, I turned off the engine and sat for a while in the rapidly cooling car, running through the plan one last time. It didn't take long, because there wasn't really much of a plan.

Forcing myself out into the cold, now wearing the old guy's gloves and bloodstained fur hat, I covered the driver's side of the windshield with newspaper before taking the charges out of the trunk. The tow rope wrapped around them made a handy shoulder strap. Finally I hid the key under the rear right wheel. If I got caught by the Maliskia, then at least they wouldn't have my keys if I managed to escape. What was more, I could tell Tom if I linked up with him, and he would also have a means of escape if I didn't make it to the car.

I wasn't going to kill him. I owed him that much after what he'd done by the fence at the Finns' house. What was more, I didn't want his death on my conscience, as well as Kelly's illness. At first I'd put my change of heart down to the fact that I wasn't thinking of saving Tom's skin as much as my own. He would be the only one who could back up my story to Lynn if this whole thing went completely to rat shit.

And why shouldn't it? Everything else had so far. But then, much as I hated the idea, I had to admit to myself that I'd come to like the chubby-cheeked fucker. He might not be the sort of guy I was used to associating with, and we certainly wouldn't be seeing each other for coffee mornings, but he was all right and he needed a break as much as I did. I'd been toying with the idea since I lay in my cheap hotel room in Helsinki. That was why I'd brought his passport with me, just in case I decided.

It was as cold as ever, but as I walked along the road I tied up my new fur hat earflaps so I could listen. Drawing level with the hangar and its funnel, I still couldn't hear any noise from inside the compound.

I reached the driveway leading to the large steel-plate gates, turned and took a few paces toward them. Then I stopped and listened. Now that I knew it was there, I could just make out the generator churning away in the distance. Apart from that I could hear nothing.

I tested the gates, but they weren't open. I tried the small door set into the larger right-hand one, but again they were still locked. I wasn't expecting it to be that easy, but I'd have felt like a real dickhead if I'd gone to all the trouble of climbing over the wall when all I had to do was stroll in through the front gate.

Lying down in the right-hand tire rut, with the charges behind me, I pressed my eye to the gap beneath. Nothing that side of the gate had changed; there were still two lights on the ground floor and the larger building to the right was just as dark. I wasn't sure if what I was looking at was good or bad; not that it mattered that much, I was still going to get among it and destroy the place, and hopefully find Tom.

Once on my feet again, with the Boy Scout knapsack reshouldered, I started back in the direction of the car, but about seventy or eighty yards past the hangar I stepped left off the road and into the high snow. My aim was to walk out into the fields, turn left and approach the hangar from the rear. I couldn't prevent leaving a trail in the snow, but at least I could try to keep most of it out of sight of the road.

The snow had a thin layer of ice on top and varied in depth from calf to thigh height. As I pressed my foot down on the not-so deep stuff, there was initial resistance, then my weight pushed through it. In the deeper drifts I felt like an icebreaker in the Baltic.

I labored on, my jeans soaking and my legs starting to freeze. At least there wasn't much cloud and my night vision was adjusting to the starlight.

The rear of the hangar loomed in front of me and I climbed inside. The floor was concrete and the steel structure supported what looked like corrugated asbestos. Moving slowly and carefully toward the wall of the compound, after about twenty paces I began to make out the dark shape of the doorway. When I reached the edge of the hangar, I stood still and listened. Not a sound, just the gentle moan of the wind.

Wading across the eight or nine feet of snow between the two buildings, I realized as soon as I reached the door that I was going to be disappointed. The metal was a lot older than the front gates and was flaking with rust. The door itself was solid, with no hinges or locks this side of it. I pushed, but there wasn't a hint of movement.

Turning right, I followed the wall and waded fifteen yards further away from the road. Hopefully I was now facing the gable end of the larger building on the other side of the concrete.

Placing the charges on the snow, I unraveled the rope attached to the plank with the brick at the end. With just two or three feet of slack, I started swinging it around me like a hammer thrower, finally letting go with upward momentum to make the plank clear the wall.

I'd never make the Olympics. The whole lot fell back down in front of me. I was just sorting out the rope for another try when vehicle lights raked the wall of the compound.

I dropped to my knees, ready to bury myself in the snow. Then I realized that on my knees I was buried in it.

The lights got stronger, disappearing for half a second as the vehicle dipped in the road, only to light up the sky before settling down again. As it got closer the inside of the hangar was lit up and moving shadows were cast by the steel supports.

The ponderous chug of a big diesel told me that a tractor was heading in my direction. I felt good about that: if the Maliskia were coming for me, I doubted they'd be riding a John Deere.

The noise got louder and the light even stronger until the tractor burst into view in the gap between the compound wall and the hangar. It looked like some old relic from a Soviet collective, with far more silhouettes in the cab than the thing was designed for. Maybe the local karaoke fanatics were heading down to the Hammer and Sickle for a few pints of vodka.

The lights and noise gradually faded and I got on with my task. It took me two more tries, but I eventually got the plank to sail over the wall, the charge end firmly anchored in my hands. The rope jerked as the plank finished its flight, probably ending up dangling about three or four feet over the target side. Gently, I started pulling it back, waiting for the bit of resistance that would tell me that the point where the rope was wrapped around the plank had connected with the far top edge of the wall. The way this thing worked was that the counterweight of the brick made the top of the plank anchor itself against an angled wall. It's one of the reasons why prisons have a large oval shape made of smooth metal on top of their walls, so that contraptions like this don't have anything to bite into. MI9 had done it again.

Maintaining the tension in the rope, and half expecting the plank to come plummeting back down onto my head at any second, I slowly let it take my whole body weight. The cheap nylon rope stretched and protested but held secure. With my feet against the wall, and using the pitted sections as toeholds and knots I'd placed along the rope, I started to climb.

It didn't take long to reach the top, and I scrambled up and rested along its three-foot width. The large building blocked most of my view of the target beyond; all I could see was the light from the windows, where it hit the snow. The generator now provided a constant rumble in the foreground.

Snow and ice cascaded from the wall as I swiveled round on my stomach, turning to face the way I'd come. With my legs now dangling down the target side, I began to pull the charges carefully up the wall. It wasn't the noise I was worried about, I didn't want to damage them.

When I'd finally got the charges up on top with me, I swiveled round again and lowered them gently down the target side. It was now simply a question of moving the plank to the other edge in order to reverse the climbing process.

Keeping the tension in the rope, I slowly lowered myself over, twisting my right foot round the rope as my hips got to the edge of the wall.

Then I let the rope take my weight and climbed down as quickly as I could.

I piled snow on top of the charges so the weight of the plank didn't pull it down the other side, taking everything with it. It was important to keep the rope in place while I went off and did a quick recce; for now, it was my only escape route.

The hum of the generator was louder at ground level, more than enough to drown the crunch of my feet on virgin snow and ice as I moved toward the rusty side door. I took the flashlight from my pocket and switched it on. Just a tiny pinprick of light emerged; I'd taped over most of the reflector, leaving just a small hole.

There was work to be done on the door. It's all well and good getting on to a target, but it's just as important getting away. If I didn't have a better escape route organized than just climbing up a rope, I'd be in deep shit if I was compromised. Working with the flashlight in my mouth, I could see that the door was secured by a large bolt, maybe two feet long, set in the middle, covered in rust, and looking as if it hadn't been opened for years. I began to work on the lever with both hands, gently lifting it up and down as I pulled it back and forth, making a little progress with each movement until the thing finally gave. Pulling the door toward me about three or four inches to confirm that it would open, I then pushed it back into position. Job done, I stopped and listened: no noise but the generator.

There was no point in risking the rope being spotted now that I had an alternative escape route, so I untied it and let it go.

Shouldering the charges, I crunched along the front of the larger building, trying to keep as close to it as possible to minimize sign.

Now I could see that it was built of chalk-colored bricks that were way past their prime. If the target house was built of the same stuff, it wasn't going to be difficult to make entry.

The generator noise increased as I reached the large opening. A mass of tire tracks led in the same direction. Going inside, I moved off to the right so I wasn't silhouetted in the entrance, and stood still in the darkness, listening to the genny noise to my far left. It felt warmer in here, but I knew it wasn't really, it was just more sheltered.

Taking the flashlight out of my pocket, I pulled off the tape but kept two fingers over the lens to control its brightness. A quick shine around the cavernous interior revealed three vehicles: a Mercedes box van, with its nose pointing out, and two sedans haphazardly parked at different angles, pointing in. The floor was concrete, covered in several years' supply of frozen mud, lumps of wood and old crates.

The flashlight was too weak to reach the generator itself, but thirty paces took me right up to it. The machinery was standing on a new section of concrete floor, about two feet above ground level to keep it well out of the shit. Beyond it was the fuel tank, a large, heavy plastic cylinder supported on cinder blocks. Seeing it gave me an idea for later on.

Jutting from the front of the generator was a power cable a good three inches thick; it ran through the gable wall, where three or four bricks had been knocked out to accommodate it, and toward the target house.

I dumped my kit at the back of the generator, turned off the flashlight, and went back to the large opening and out into the compound.

Following the many footprints that had been made between this building and the target about fifteen yards away, I made my way toward the main door. Directly ahead I saw the triangle of darkness that stretched from directly below the ground-floor windowsill to about three feet out into the snow, where the light hit the ground.

I checked my weapon was properly placed in my jacket pocket so that, if needed, I could bite off my glove and draw down with ease.

Checking before passing the six-foot gap between the two buildings to my right, I could see where the generator cable came out of the barn wall and went into the target's. I also saw plenty of footprints from the path I was on, branching off between the two buildings and toward the rear of the target. People must be in and out of here all the time.

Bending down, I edged my way under the first window, as close as possible to the wall. The glass above me was protected by steel bars.

A television was on. The voices were English, and it didn't take me long to work out the channel was MTV. This got weirder by the minute.

With my back to the wall, I looked and listened. The light above me was shining through yellow floral curtains, though the material was too thick to see through. I couldn't hear any talking, just Ricky Martin singing. Putting my ear to the wall I listened again. I didn't have to try hard. Bursting in with the chorus was a heavy Eastern European accent trying to give Ricky a hand.

40

ThE target building seemed to consist of a concrete frame filled with red clay brickwork with air holes and serrated sides. Whoever had put it together had never heard of a plumb line, and too many bad winters had taken their toll on the bricks; they looked as crumbly as the one I'd tied to the plank.

With Ricky Martin reaching the end of his song, I moved up the two concrete steps to the main door. It was the same arrangement as the baar in Narva, except the other way round, with the steel grill on the outside and the wooden door set back about six inches further into the frame. I needed to find out if it was locked. It wasn't my chosen point of entry, but if the charges didn't work and the door happened to be open, at least I'd have options. More to the point, if I fucked up inside, I had an extra escape route.

The grill wasn't locked. I moved it gently backward an inch and it made no noise, so I pulled it toward me a couple of inches, returned it an inch and pulled another two, controlling the quiet squeaks as it gradually opened. Eventually the grill was open enough to squeeze my arm past and try the door. There were no sounds apart from MTV and the generator as I pushed the door handle down gently and gave a small push. It was locked.

I stood and listened, hoping to hear Tom's voice. Something was being fried, and the smell was wafting under the door. From upstairs came a shout, muffled by the sound of the TV, but it wasn't Tom's voice.

Then I realized the shouting wasn't shouting, it was meant to be singing. My friend the Ricky Martin impressionist was on his way back downstairs.

Moving out of the doorway, I pulled my glove off with my teeth and gripped my weapon. If he came out, I'd be stepping over his dead body and going straight in with so much speed, aggression, and surprise that I'd scare even myself.

His voice got louder as he reached the ground floor. A chorus of other voices bellowed from the rear of the building, maybe in Russian, but definitely telling him to shut the fuck up.

He had reached the hallway and was only feet from the door, shouting back, along with at least two other voices from the TV room. It was banter, nothing more.

The singer went back into the room and the MTV show died down to a slightly quieter level as the door was closed.

I moved back to the front door and listened. Nothing now but the sound of more music being played. Replacing my weapon, I slowly closed the grill the same way as I'd opened it.

Moving back down the steps, I followed the tracks toward the far end of the target, ducking under the left-hand window and into its dark triangle. Even with my ear to the wet, cold wall, I could hear no sound from inside. The windows were steamed up behind the steel bars; maybe this was the kitchen?

I reached the corner of the building and cleared it. There were no windows this side, but plenty of footprints in the snow leading to the rear. What could easily be seen, however, even in this light, was a large satellite dish, slightly jutting out to the left of the building and pointing upward at about forty-five degrees. I felt as if I was having a Microsoft HQ flashback, and hoped the NSA didn't arrive to complete the story. At the same time I was pleased I'd seen it. The dish was my only confirmation that this really was the target.

I counted the paces as I moved toward it, in preparation for laying the charges. Seventeen one-yard steps took me to the rear of the building.

I cleared the corner and the generator gained a decibel or two. Light was shining through curtains from both of the upstairs windows, just enough to cast a dim glow over the satellite dish's two friends. All three were about the same size as those at Microsoft HQ, but made of solid plastic, not mesh. They pointed skyward in different directions.

They weren't static, dug-in dishes, but on stands, with ice-covered sandbags over the legs to keep them in position. Like the Finnish ones, they, too, were clear of snow and ice, and the whole area around them was trampled down. Beyond them, maybe forty yards away, was the dark shape of the rear compound wall.

I turned the corner and realized that hidden in the shadow of the top windows' dark triangles were two more windows on the ground floor, without light. All four mirrored the ones on the front of the target.

To get under the first window took five paces, making it twenty two in total so far. I crouched by three thick, snow-covered satellite feeds which came out of the snow and disappeared into a hole in the brickwork directly beneath the first ground-floor window. The gap around the cabling was roughly refilled with concrete.

The downstairs windows on this side were also barred. I could now see chinks of light around the edges of the frame I was crouching beneath.

Lifting my eyes to the sill for a closer look, I saw that the glass was boarded over from the inside.

I heard a humming noise coming from the other side of the boards, high-pitched and electrical, unlike the throbbing diesel further along in the other building. No human voices, but I knew they were there somewhere. I never thought I'd find myself longing to hear Tom asking for a cup of herbal tea "My body's a temple, know what I mean, Nick?" but it didn't happen.

Stepping over the cables, it took me another nine slow and careful paces to the next window to add to the twenty-two. I'd soon know how much det cord I'd need to take off the reel.

This window was also boarded up, but there was a little more light spilling out. Two sheets of quarter-inch plywood, which should have been flush against the glass, were not, leaving a half-inch gap on the right-hand side.

Doing a Houdini, I adjusted my head to try and get a good viewing angle, pressing it right up against the iron bars, the hat working as a perfect insulator for my head. I got a glimpse of very bright lighting, under which I could see a bank of about five or six gray plastic PC monitors facing away from me, their rear vents black with burned dust. Judging from what I could see, this rear half of the building was one big room.

As I adjusted my head in an another attempt to see more, everything inside went dark. A body blocked my view. I watched as he leaned forward on his arms, his head moving from side to side as he studied the different screens in front of him, no more than two feet away from me. He must have been about mid-thirties with short dark-blond hair on top of a very square head, and he was wearing a patterned crewneck sweater that any geek's mother would have been proud of. He started to smile, then nodded to himself as he turned toward the gap. He was no more than a foot away now as he answered a quick aggressive Russian voice behind him. He looked down at something, and whatever it was he was happy about it. Maybe Tom had come up with the goods for them and they had Echelon. If so, it wouldn't be for long.

He picked up a sheet of printed paper and waved it at whoever was behind him, then he moved out of my line of vision, back into the room.

It was probably the Christmas lunch menu from the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in San Diego. They seemed to know everything else that was happening there.

At least I knew where the kit that had to be destroyed was all I needed to find now was Tom. I waited for further movement for another fifteen minutes with my eye to the gap, but nothing happened. I was getting very cold and my toes were numb. Lion King told me it was only 5:49; it was going to get a whole lot colder yet.

I moved to the next corner of the target, toward the generator. It was another five paces, which made thirty-six in total. I was happy; there was more than enough det cord.

I turned right and walked down the small gap between the two buildings, stepping over the generator cable lying in the snow. Just as with the satellite cables, a hole had been punched through the target's brickwork and the gap refilled with handfuls of concrete.

I made my way back to the generator building and started to prepare the kit. The first thing I checked was that I still had the batteries in my inside pocket: In dems, it's the ultimate sin to lose control of the initiation device, on a par with leaving your weapon more than an arm's length away from you. I'd been keeping them close to my body to stop them getting sluggish in the cold; they needed to work first time.

I didn't need light for unrolling the det cord because I knew what I was doing, but the generator noise would drown out any human movement coming into the building, so I had to keep my eyes on the entrance while I was working. Placing the reel between my feet, I held the loose end in my right hand and stretched out my arm, pushing the det cord into my armpit with my left. I did that thirty-six times, plus an extra five to cover what I needed to do on the wall this side of the target. I added two more for luck, cutting it with my blackened Leatherman. I then laid it on the floor, next to the charges. This was now called the main line, and would be used to send the shock wave to all the charges at once via their det tails.

The next thing I had to sort out was the little brain wave I'd had for the fuel tank. What I had in mind was the most spectacular explosion this side of Hollywood. When the fuel tank blew it wouldn't be the most productive bang in the world, but the effect would be phenomenal.

I climbed the ladder of the tank with the det cord in my hand, slowly un feeding it from the reel. When I lifted the flap on the tank, the flashlight beam hit on the surface of shiny liquid that filled about three-quarters of the cylinder. After tying a double knot on the end of the cord, I pulled the gas-station shopping bag from my jacket. In it was the spare four-pound ball of PE that any dems man worth his salt always carries to plug up any holes or damage to a charge. The smell wasn't too bad out in the open as I ripped off about half and played with it to warm it up.

Once it was pliable enough, I squashed it around the double knot, ensuring it had worked its way into the gaps of the ties, and finally I taped the whole thing up to keep the PE in place.

I lowered the ball of PE into the tank by its string of det cord, stopping when it was dangling about two or three inches from the surface of the fuel. It only takes a split second for fuel to vaporize after an explosion, but when that detonates, the effect is volcanic. If I fucked up this job, it would certainly give the appearance that I'd given it my best shot. How could Val doubt my word when the fireball would probably be big enough for him to see it in Moscow?

I taped the det cord onto the side of the fuel tank, then climbed back down the ladder, carefully unreeling the rest of the cord as I moved toward the hole in the wall. I wanted to cut a long enough length so that, once laid out, it would reach the target house. Nine extra arm's lengths seemed to put me on the safe side. I made the cut, then started to push the end of the det cord through the hole in the wall.

Just then, light came bouncing down the gap from the front of the buildings. I couldn't hear anything above the generator. I quickly pulled the det cord back in and froze. The only things moving were my eyes; they flicked from the hole to the entrance, waiting for any movement from either direction.

A shiny wet pair of waders and a pair of normal outdoor boots were illuminated by the beam of light as it searched for the generator cable. What worried me was the AK wader-man had hanging down by his side, its large foresight at the end of the barrel level with his knees.

Once over it, they carried on toward the rear and moved out of sight.

There wasn't any talking, or if there was, I couldn't hear it above the generator. I didn't even hear their feet in the snow.

They must have been doing something with the dishes. I waited; there was nothing else I could do. No way was I going out there again until I knew they were safely tucked up back in the house.

I lay on the frozen mud and waited for their return, my eyes still moving between the gaps in the brickwork. The cold soon penetrated my clothing, numbing my skin. The six or seven minutes it took before I saw the flashlight flickering about on the snow again didn't pass quickly enough.

Craning my neck to get a better view, I watched their silhouettes fade as they reached the corner of the building. I waited a few more frozen minutes in case they'd forgotten something or realized they'd fucked up and had to come back to redo it.

While I waited the lightbulb went off again. When I eventually got to my feet, I went across to the vehicles and let down their tires. The fireball ought to sort out the vehicles and guarantee they couldn't be used in a follow-up, but it didn't hurt to play safe.

I grinned stupidly to myself as the air hissed out and the tire rims settled on the frozen mud. Watching the hole in the wall for flashlight, I was eight years old again, crouching by my stepfather's car.

Moving back to the kit, I pushed the det cord through the hole in the wall once more, then cut several eight-inch strips of packing tape from the roll and stuck them around both forearms. Finally I shouldered the pack of charges, gripped the coiled-up main line in my left hand and moved back out into the cold.

41

I headed for the gap between the two buildings. Ahead of me the dim light from the house still spilt onto the snow.

I cleared the gap and moved toward the rear. Stepping over the genny cable, I checked the det cord was still in the hole, ready for when I came back for it later, then continued down to the corner. The elevations of the dishes had changed dramatically.

I wanted to make one last check for Tom through the gap in the boards.

Maybe I'd be in luck; there's a first time for everything.

Angling my head, I peered through, but couldn't see any movement.

Stepping over the satellite-dish cables, I made my way to the far corner, then turned and counted three paces toward the front of the target. I crouched down at that point and placed the charges and reel of det cord onto the snow. The computer room was on the other side of this wall. It was going to be gloves on, gloves off for the next twenty minutes as I positioned the charges.

Undoing the tow rope that kept the charges together, I placed one of the foam squares against the bricks, the base of the Toblerones facing the target, so the det tail dangled in front of me. Then, ramming the end of one of the wooden pallet slats into the snow at an angle, I used it to keep the Styrofoam square in position against the wall.

When I checked the charge with the aid of the flashlight, I discovered a tiny break where aPE joint had come apart. This didn't mean to say the PE wouldn't initiate, since the gap was less than a sixteenth of an inch, but why take that chance?

Manipulating a small lump of PE between my gloved hands until it was pliable, I broke off a piece and plugged the space. After a final check, I killed the flashlight and moved over to the nearest dish. I lifted one of its ice-hard sandbags and placed it halfway along the wall, using it to weigh down the free end of the main line. I then began the process of laying out its forty-three arm's lengths back toward the charge. The weight of the sandbag enabled me to pull the cord gently to ensure there weren't any kinks or twists, so the shock wave had a free run to the det tails.

Once I reached the propped-up charge it was gloves-off time again.

Peeling one of the strips of tape from my forearm, I began to bind the det tail to the main line, taping the two sections together as tightly as possible. I did it strictly by the book, binding the main line one foot down the det tail in case some of the explosive had fallen from the exposed end. The binding was four inches, to guarantee enough contact between the two for the shock wave to transfer across from the main line to the det tail. Then, of course, it would journey on down to the charge.

As I peeled off another strip of tape it dawned on me that whenever I was working on dems, I always used feet and inches rather that meters and kilos. That was the way I'd been taught, one of the main reasons being that it made life a lot easier when working with Americans, who weren't too keen on the metric system.

There was a sudden burst of loud music from an upstairs window around the back, stopping as abruptly as it had started. I instinctively ducked, and through the rear windows I could hear various voices shouting. At least another three different voices could be heard shouting back and laughing.

It brought me back to real life. The act of tactically placing charges always seems to detach you from reality. Maybe it's because there's so much concentration involved, because there are no second chances.

That's why you normally make sure that whoever is doing the technical stuff can just get on with it and concentrate. It wasn't a luxury I had tonight.

I swiped another sandbag from the base of the dish and placed it on top of the main line, on the dish side of the det tail. I didn't want to pull on it and disrupt the charge I'd already set up as I picked up the second charge. I began to unreel the main line over the satellite cable toward the gap between the two buildings.

Someone was fucking with the volume as Aerosmith's theme song "Armageddon" got louder and then suddenly died above me, prompting more shouts from the computer room. Just as I reached the next corner, the heavy Eastern European voices above bellowed out yet again and the music blared out at full volume.

I knelt between the two buildings and rigged up the second charge on the other side of the target house so that it was exactly facing the first. Once it was propped and checked, I began taping its det tail to the main line. The music hit full blast again for two seconds, then subsided. There were more shouts from downstairs. The boys in the computer room were getting ever so slightly pissed. I reckoned there was a minimum of five people in the building.

I gave the charge a final check; it was looking good. Demolitions can appear to be a dark art, but actually all you need to understand is how explosives work and then learn the hundreds of rules for using them.

I'd broken many of them today, but what the hell, I hadn't had a lot of choice.

I went over to the generator cable hole and gently pulled out the det cord that ran into the fuel tank, taping it to the main line in the same way as I'd done with the other two.

Aerosmith were still doing their best to annoy the computer room. It was a good game, and I hoped it would keep the boys occupied for a moment or two longer. I thought about Tom and hoped he wasn't standing too close to either of the walls.

Gloves back on, I pulled the main line for the last few arm's lengths toward the front of the building. Now I just had to attach the electric detonator, which was already fixed to the firing cable, then unreel the cable round the corner and get down below the MTV window before the shit, and everything else in the building, hit the fan.

I was a bit worried about the amount of extraneous electricity flying about and its possible effect on the firing cable. Once I'd untwisted the two leads that were to go on the battery, they'd be potential antennae, just like the dels in the Narva flat. The manuals would say I was either supposed to be half a mile away when the shit went up or very well protected. I didn't think hiding round the corner with a few clay bricks as cover was quite what they had in mind.

The main line stopped about six or seven paces short of the corner of the target. Great, at least the firing cable would be long enough for me to be well under the window.

As I gently pulled at the press studs holding the zip flap of my jacket to extract the firing cable, the volume of the music changed again. It was escaping outside. Then I heard the noise of the grill swinging open and the front door slamming shut.

There was no time to think, just do. Biting off my gloves, I jammed my hand into my jacket pocket for the Makharov, right thumb taking off the safety as I moved toward the corner, taking deep breaths.

I couldn't hear him them yet, but whichever it was, I had to take the fight to them.

Three more paces until the corner.

There was flashlight ahead. I stopped, pushing my thumb down on the safety catch to ensure it was off.

One more second and a body appeared, heading toward me. He was looking down at where his flashlight beam hit the snow. It glinted off his weapon barrel.

I couldn't give him time to think. I jumped onto him, wrapping my left arm around his neck and pushing the Makharov into his stomach, digging it into him hard. My legs wrapped around his waist, and as we fell together I pulled the trigger, hoping that our two bodies sandwiching the weapon would suppress its report. No chance. The job had just gone noisy.

Jumping to my feet, I sprinted round to the front of the house, focusing solely on the next corner, heading for the other end of the main line, leaving a screaming Russian writhing in the snow.

I racked back the weapon's top slide to eject whatever was in there and feed in another round, just in case we'd been so close that it had been prevented from sliding back correctly when I'd fired and hadn't reloaded.

I had the same feeling in my stomach as I used to have as a kid, running scared. As I neared the main entrance, I scrambled frantically with my left hand for the firing cable and det in my inside pocket.

The door opened, MTV still blasting, and a body, too small to be Tom, emerged. The grill was already open.

"Gory? Gory?"

I raised my weapon and fired on the move. I couldn't miss.

There was a scream and one round hit the grill with a high pitched metallic ricochet.

I carried straight on past, turned the corner and made a headlong dive toward the sandbag, dropping my weapon and desperately fishing for the main line coming from under the sandbag. I didn't look up to see if anyone was coming for me. I didn't have time.

The wounded man's screams echoed around the compound. I tried to calm myself and slow my frenzied movements. I held the det onto the main line and wrapped a strip of tape around both not as tightly as I would have liked, but fuck it.

I pulled out the battery and yanked the twisted end leads of the firing cable apart with my teeth. Then, falling to the floor, I squeezed my legs together, opened my jaw and buried my head in the snow as I pushed the two leads onto the terminals.

Less than a single heartbeat later the detonator exploded and initiated the main line. The shock wave of the explosion traveled along it, met the first det tail and then the one leading to the fuel tank. Then the second det tail got the good news.

The two wall charges exploded virtually simultaneously, and the resultant shock waves met in the middle of the room at a combined speed of 52,000 feet per second.

42

My whole world shuddered, trembled, quaked. It was like being inside a massive bell that had just been given an almighty bang.

The air was sucked from my lungs as hot air blasted over me. Around the compound snow, and ice shot upward a foot or so from the ground.

My ears rang. Brick dust, snow, and shattered glass cascaded around me. Then the shock wave rebounded off the thick concrete perimeter walls and came back for more.

Crawling forward to the corner of the target, I watched, mesmerized, as an enormous fireball whooshed from the entrance of the generator building and leaped high into the sky. Thick black smoke mixed with bright orange flames that burned like an oil-rig flare. The entire area was bathed in light and I could feel the heat scorching my face.

Chunks of brick, glass, and all kinds of other stuff that had been blown sky high started clattering around me. Scrambling to my knees, I threw my arms over my head to protect myself. You're supposed to look up to prepare for the stuff coming toward you, but fuck that, I just kept close to the wall and took my chances. I wouldn't be able to see it anyway. The sandstorm of red brick dust had arrived, blanketing the compound; it was just a matter of hanging in there and waiting for the last of the fallout to rain down. I began coughing like a lifelong smoker.

I cleared each nostril in turn, then tried to equalize the pressure in my ears. A sharp, stinging pain seared across my buttocks. My ass must have taken some of the shock wave as it passed over me. At least it wasn't my face or balls. I checked for blood, but my fingers came back just wet with water from the snow-soaked jeans.

It was time to get to my feet and start moving back for my weapon, which was still in the snow somewhere. I felt around on my hands and knees, my ass in agony, as if I'd just been whipped. I found the Makharov by the sandbag and, checking chamber with my finger to the heavy rumbling sound of burning fuel, I stumbled toward the main door.

There was a secondary explosion in the generator building, probably a vehicle fuel tank in the path of the firestorm. For the next few moments the flames burned higher and more intensely.

The guy in the gap wasn't screaming any more, but he was still alive, coiled up and holding his stomach. I went over to where he lay trembling in the snow. I picked up his AK and threw it toward the main gate, out of his reach. I certainly wouldn't be needing it myself inside the house.

When the two shock waves from the opposing explosions had met, they would have wiped out everything in the computer room. The force would then have taken the line of least resistance to escape the confines of the building: the windows and doors. Surging along the hallways, it would have destroyed everything in its path. The MTV man wasn't looking good. Some bits of him were draped on the grill like strips of meat hanging in a smokehouse. The rest would have been scattered out in the snow. When humans burn they smell like scorched pork, but when they're blown apart like this, it's as if you've walked into a butcher's shop a week after a power outage.

The flashlight wasn't much good in the hallway; it just reflected off the wall of dust like a car's headlights in dense fog. I blundered around, stumbling over bricks and other debris, trying to find the gap to the right that would lead to the MTV room.

I found the door, or rather the place where it had been. As I moved through, my feet collided with sticks of furniture, then what was left of the television set and a whole lot more bricks. I was still coughing shit out of my lungs, and was the only one doing so. I could hear no other movement, no sounds of distress.

Tripping over a large bundle on the floor, I switched on my flashlight and knelt down to check it. The body was on its side and smouldering, facing away from me. Rolling him toward me, I shone the light into his dust-covered face. It wasn't Tom. Whoever this man in his early twenties had been, he wasn't any more. The skin was pulled back from his head like a partly peeled orange and the blood he'd lost was mixing with the dust to look like wet, red cement.

I continued across the room, kicking out and feeling like a blind man as I searched for more bodies. There were two, but neither of them was Tom. I wasn't going to call out, in case someone decided to reply with something other than a voice.

I tried to get into the room opposite the kitchen but the door was jammed. Leaving it to go upstairs, I decided to check the easy places first. I didn't bother with the computer room: Even if there were any bodies there, they wouldn't be recognizable. In other circumstances I might have taken a moment or two to be quietly proud; I was shit at most things, but in high school Demolitions I'd got a distinction.

I headed up the stairs, my left hand on the wall, having to feel for every step as I made my way to the top. I cleared my nostrils again, spitting the dust out of my throat as I equalized my nose again to clear the ringing in my ears.

As I reached the top landing I heard a short, faint cry; I couldn't tell where it came from. I went left first, since it was nearer.

Feeling my way to the door, I pushed, but it wouldn't budge more than four or five inches. Pushing even harder, I managed to get my foot round and made contact with the body on the other side that was stopping it going further. I squeezed through and checked. It was just another poor fucker in his twenties who wanted his mother.

I stumbled into a chair, moved round it and heard someone else moaning at my feet. Kneeling down, I got in there with the flashlight and turned the body over.

It was Tom, red brick dust over his face and head, red snot running from his nose, but alive. I'd thought this would be a cause to celebrate, but now I wasn't too sure. He didn't look good.

He was whimpering away in a world of his own, reminding me of the glue-sniffing kid in Narva. I checked him over to make sure he had all his limbs. "You're okay, mate," I said. "You're all right. Come on."

He wouldn't have a clue what I was saying or who was saying it, but it made me feel better.

I brushed the crap from his face so at least he could open his eyes at some stage, then I reached under his armpits and dragged him out onto the landing, stopping twice to snort muck from my nose.

Still gripping him, I went down the stairs backward. His feet bounced from step to step. He was out of it, still bound up in his own little world of pain and confusion, aware that he was being moved, but not really conscious enough to help.

We got clear of the brick dust and into the fresh air. Dumping him on the ground, I cleared my nose again and gasped clean air into my lungs.

"Tom. Wake up, mate. Tom, Tom…"

I grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed it over his face. Beginning to recover, he coughed and spluttered but still couldn't speak.

The flames coming from the generator building were licking hungrily at the barn door and dancing on the snow, illuminating us quite clearly.

Tom was wearing the same sweatshirt as when I last saw him, but he had no shoes or coat.

"Wait here, mate. Don't move, all right?"

As if.

I headed back into the dust-filled MTV room. The cries upstairs were getting louder. I wanted to get away from here before they sorted themselves out and the police or DTTS arrived.

I found the first body again, still smouldering. He hadn't been wearing a coat, but it was his footwear I was after. They weren't exactly walking boots, more like basketball sneakers, but they'd do.

Kicking and fumbling around, I also came across an AK and a coat among the shredded furniture.

Tom was lying spreadeagled on his back, exactly as I'd left him. I shook the dust out of what turned out to be a parka and put it around him. The white sneakers were about two sizes too big, but what the fuck, he only had to make it as far as the car.

As I began to pull them onto his feet he finally made a noise. He lifted a hand to wipe the shit from his face and saw me.

"Tom, it's Nick…" I shook his head. He would have been deafened by the explosion and I couldn't tell whether his hearing had come back yet. "It's me Nick. Get up, Tom. We have to get going."

"Nick? Shit. What the fuck are you doing here? What the fuck happened?"

I finished tying his laces and slapped his feet. "Get up now, come on."

"What? What?"

I helped him up and into the parka. It was like dressing an exhausted child. "Tom…"

He still couldn't hear.

"Tom… Tom…"

"Huh…?" He was trying to get an arm into a sleeve.

"I'll be back in a minute, okay?"

I didn't wait for a nod. Leaving him to it, I went back to retrieve my gloves. I found them just feet away from the first man I'd shot, who was now clearly dead.

Tom had sat down again in the snow. I got him upright, zipped up his parka, then helped him move slowly to the small gate leading to the abandoned hangar.

"We've got to get a move on, Tom. Come on, let's go. There's a car just round the corner."

Turning left onto the road, I checked for vehicle lights. I lengthened my stride, keeping a tight grip on Tom, holding him as if we were a couple out for the night, arm in arm.

Trying to keep upright on the ice as I urged him on, I looked behind me. The glow from the generator building was still visible, but the sky was no longer filled with flames. In the small amount of ambient light I could see Tom's face. He was in a bad way; his hair was sticking up all over the place, still covered in dust and blood, and he looked like the victim of a cartoon explosion.

"Tom?" I looked into his eyes for signs of acknowledgment but got none. "We're going to the car. It's not far. Try to keep up with me, okay?"

I wasn't too sure what his answer was. Something between "maybe" and "what?"

His hearing had recovered a bit by the time we got to where I'd parked the car, but he still didn't know what day it was. I collapsed on my hands and knees, gulping in cold air. Fuck the teeth, my ass hurt even more now. But what hurt most of all was realizing that the car was gone.

My head spun. Maybe I had the wrong place? No, there were the tire marks. There, too, were some other tire marks; and besides my footprints there was a mass of others. The new tire marks were very wide and deep, probably from a tractor. The fuckers; the karaoke fanatics must have had the car away, along with my two spare weapons.

"Shit, the car's been swiped." I wasn't too sure if I was informing Tom or trying to get my own head around it.

Tom was confused. "You said "

"I know what I said, but the car's gone." I paused. "Don't worry, it's not a drama."

It was.

Chances were they hadn't even had to break into it, just hitch it up and slide the locked wheels across the ice. Mr. and Mrs. Fuckup had been well and truly at home from the moment I first stepped into the Intercontinental Hotel.

For a second I wished I hadn't let the tires down on all three vehicles in the genny building, then I remembered that by now they'd all be toast. The best thing I could hope for in this neck of the woods was another tractor, but if I lifted one I'd be making people aware that we were on the ground. In any case, we didn't have the time to search.

There was only one option right now, and that was to walk it.

I got up off the ground. "Tom, change of plan."

Well, there would be once I'd worked one out. But first we had to get further away from the area, and quickly. At least the stars were now fully out and it was easier to see and be seen.

Slowly coming to his senses, he stood there, arms crossed and hands tucked under his armpits, coughing up brick dust and waiting for my decision.

"Follow me."

I started to move down the road, putting distance between us and the target. Tom trailed slowly behind. We'd gone about 400 yards as I sorted out a plan, then stopped and checked for Polaris, the North Star.

Tom was starting to spark up a bit more now that he was generating some warmth. He closed up to me as I gazed skyward. "It was a fucking nightmare in there," he muttered, "but I knew Liv would get you to come "

I cut in, hoping to shut him up. "That's right, Tom. Liv's your fairy godmother."

I didn't tell him what she had planned for midnight.

His hood was down and I could see steam coming off his thick red-bricked hair now that he had worked up a sweat. I pulled his hood up over his head to retain some of the body heat and checked the North Star again.

"Nick, what happened to… you know…? Fucking nightmare or what?"

"What?" I had a load of questions for him as well, but now wasn't the time or place.

"You know, the fence, the house. What was all that about?"

It just wasn't important right now. "Tom." I kept looking skyward, even though I'd finished up there.

"What?"

I gave him the thousand-yard stare. "Shut-the-fuck-up."

"Oh."

I'd got the reply I wanted.

I confirmed the plan in my head for the last time before I actioned it.

We'd head north and cross country until we hit the railway line. If we turned left along it, we'd be facing west, toward Tallinn. Then we would follow the tracks to a station and catch a train, maybe the first one out of Narva. I wasn't sure, but I thought it left there at about eightish in the morning, so we'd need to be at a station about an hour after that. Only once we'd reached Tallinn would I start to worry about how to get us both out of the country.

According to the Lion King, we had the best part of fourteen hours in which to cover what I guessed would be about twelve miles not a problem so long as we got a move on.

Tom was still facing me, trying to work out why I was gazing at the heavens. I got in there before he had a chance to ask. "We'll have to get back to Tallinn by train now."

"Where's that then, mate? Aren't we going to Helsinki?"

I looked down, but I couldn't see his face. He had moved the wire sewn into the rim of his hood so the fur closed off his face, making him look like Liam Gallagher after a big night out.

"We are," I said, "but we've got to go to Tallinn first."

From behind the fur came a muffled, "Why's that?"

"It's the easiest way. We've got to move up to the railway track, get a train to Tallinn, then catch a ferry to Helsinki."

I didn't even know if he was aware what country he was in. I got right up close so he could see me smiling, trying to make it sound not too much of a big deal.

His mind was obviously on other things as his voice came out of the darkness. "Are they all dead? You know, that lot back there?"

"I think so. Most of them, anyway."

"Shit, you killed them? Won't we get in trouble? You know, the law..

."

I couldn't be bothered to explain, so I just shrugged. "It was the only way I could get you out of the shit."

His shoulders began to heave and I suddenly realized he was laughing.

"How did you know when to set the bomb off? I mean, I could have been killed if I hadn't been upstairs." It was nervous laughter.

I looked up, searching for the North Star again so he couldn't see my face. "You've no idea the trouble I went to, mate. Anyway, we'll talk about that later. We have to get a move on now."

"How far, do you reckon?"

His parka hood was looking skyward, too, but he didn't have a clue what he was looking for. He started to shiver.

"Not far, Tom. Just a couple of hours. If we play our cards right, we'll be on a nice warm train soon."

Why tell him the truth now? I hadn't bothered to so far. "You ready then?"

He was coughing up the last of the brick dust like a TH patient.

"Yeah, Is'poseso."

I started down the road and he followed on behind. After just a couple of hundred yards we hit a treeline, about fifteen yards off the road on our left. I headed for it, leaving ridiculous amounts of tracks in snow which was up to my knees and sometimes waist high. It didn't bother me. Why worry about things you can't change?

I waited for Tom to catch up. The pace wasn't going to be anything to write home about. You have to move at the speed of the slowest; that's just how it is if you want to keep together. I wondered about improvising snow shoes by tying tree branches to our feet, but quickly decided against; these things look good on paper but in the dark it's just a pain in the ass to prepare and wastes time.

I looked up. Wispy clouds were starting to appear and scud across the stars.

Tom caught up and I allowed him a minute's rest before we moved on. I wanted to get out into the open fields before starting cross country, following Polaris. That way we'd give the compound a wide berth as we had to head north, back toward it.

At the end of the treeline, visibility was about fifty to sixty yards in the starlight. The landscape was white, fading to black. In the middle distance to my half left I could see the dim glow of the target area.

I felt the cold bite into my face as I looked up at the sky once more.

Tom shuffled up next to me, knees buried in snow, standing so close that his breath merged with mine, losing itself in the wind. His hood was off again as he tried to cool down. I put it back up and slapped him on the head. "Don't do that, you'll lose all the heat you've just generated."

He pulled the fur around his face once more.

I tried to find a reference point on the ground north of us, but it was too dark. The next best thing was to pick a star on the horizon below Polaris and go for that-it was easier than constantly checking skyward. I got one, not as bright as some, but good enough.

"Ready?"

The hood moved and the material rustled as a head nodded about in there somewhere.

We headed north. The only positive thing I could think of was that the pain in my ass had now disappeared. Either that or it was even colder than I'd realized.

43

The ground beneath the snow was plowed, so both of us kept slipping and falling on the angled, frozen furrows. The best way forward seemed to be to keep my feet low and push through the snow. I became the icebreaker and Tom followed in my wake; anything to speed him up.

Clouds drifted across the sky more frequently now, intermit tendy blotting out my guide on the horizon. Polaris, too, was in and out of cloud cover.

Tom lagged about ten yards behind, hands in pockets, head down. There was nothing to do but keep pushing north as the clouds moved faster and gained in mass.

After about an hour the wind began to pick up, attacking my face and tugging at my coat. It was time to put down the furry earflaps. Each time we lost direction, all I could do was keep heading in what I thought was a straight line, only to find that we were way off course when the cloud cleared. I felt like a pilot flying without instruments. Our trail through the snow must have been one long zigzag.

My major concern was that the wind and cloud would bring snow. If that happened, we'd lose our means of navigation altogether, and without protection, catching the train would be the least of my worries.

With a bad feeling that we were going to be in even deeper shit very soon, I stopped when I found a natural dip and used my back to push a groove in the snow to get us out of the wind. I scraped a channel in the lip to act as my north marker before Polaris disappeared again.

Tom reached me as I dug myself in with my gloved hands. I expected him to follow my example, but when I turned he was having a piss, the steam and liquid disappearing almost immediately in the wind. He should have been retaining his warm body fluids at all costs, but I was too late. I went back to preparing our makeshift shelter. Stress hormones are released in cold weather, filling out the bladder more quickly. That's why we always seem to urinate more when it's cold. The problem is that you lose body heat and a serious thirst develops. Unless hot fluids are taken on board it's a vicious circle from there on out, with dehydration helping to bring down the body's core temperature. If your core temperature falls below 83.8 degrees F you will die.

Tom was done, and putting his hands back in his pockets he turned and collapsed ass first into the dip.

The wind hit the lip, sounding like one of the gods blowing across the neck of a bottle, and blasting the snow onto our backs and shoulders.

Tom's fur rim turned to me as I slid into the dip beside him.

I knew what he was going to ask.

"Not long now, mate," I preempted. "It's a bit further than I thought, but we'll have a rest here. When you start to get cold, tell me and we'll get moving again, okay?"

The hood moved, which I took to be a nod. He brought his knees up to his chest and lowered his head to meet them.

I bit off my gloves and held them between my teeth while I fumbled to tie the earflaps under my chin, then I unzipped his parka a bit so he could ventilate, yet still retain his body heat. Finally, standing up into the wind, I undid my pants and tucked everything back in, and pushed the bottoms of my heavy wet jeans into my boots. It was a cold and uncomfortable process in wet, clingy clothes, but it was worth it.

I would have lost heat doing it, but sorting my shit out always made me feel better.

As I was about to lie down again in the dip, I saw Tom tucking his hand into his sleeve and lifting some snow to his mouth. I put out a hand.

"That's off the menu, mate."

I wasn't going to waste energy explaining why. Not only does it use up crucial body heat through melting it in your mouth, it also cools the body from the inside, chilling the vital organs. Nevertheless, water was going to be a problem. I put my gloves back on and scooped up a handful of snow, but only passed it over when I'd I worked it into a compressed ball. "Suck on that. Don't eat it, okay?"

I looked at the sky. The cloud cover was now more or less total.

Tom soon lost interest in the ice ball, hunching once more into a fetal position, knees up by his chest, hands deep in his pockets and head down. His body was starting to shake, and I had to agree with him; I'd had better days out.

Now that we'd cleared the danger area and were resting for a while, it seemed the right time to ask him a few questions. I hoped it would help take his mind off the shit we were in. I also needed some answers.

"Why didn't you tell me you knew Valentin? I know you were trying to access Echelon at Menwith Hill for him."

I couldn't see his reaction, but there was movement in the hood. "I'm sorry, mate," he mumbled. "She's got me by the balls. I'm sorry, I really wanted to, it's just that… you know…"

His hood dropped down as if his neck muscles had lost control.

"You mean threats? Some kind of threat to you or your family?"

His shoulders jerked up and down as he fought to contain the sobs.

"Mum… Dad… and I've got a sister with kids, know what I mean? I wanted to tell you, Nick, honest I did, but… well, you know.

Listen, it ain't Valentin doing this shit, mate. It's her; she's freelancing. He don't know a thing about it; she's just using his name, letting you think you're working for him."

He didn't need to say any more. Things were suddenly making more sense to me than they had in a long time. That was why she'd been able to say yes straight away to the three million. That was why she'd insisted there was to be no contact with anyone apart from her. It even explained why she didn't want me to have a weapon: She probably thought that if I found out what was happening I'd use it against her.

"How did you get sucked back into all this?"

I waited for him to try to compose himself.

"Liv. Well, not her to begin with, but this guy Ignaty he came and saw me in London. The day before you did."

Where had I heard that name before? Then I realized. He was the underwriter; it had been his name on the piece of paper in Narva. So maybe Liv wasn't the only one of Val's people to be going freelance.

Now Tom had started babbling it was important not to ask the sort of questions that might suddenly make him realize he was saying too much.

I just said gently, "What happened then, mate?"

"He said Liv had a job for me and that I'd be going to Finland. That someone would come and persuade me and all that stuff. I shat myself when I found out it was Echelon again, but I had no choice, mate. My sister and what have you… Nick, you gotta help me. Please, she'll kill everyone if I don't sort this shit out. Please help me.

Please."

He wept into his hood.

"Tom…"

He didn't register. Maybe his sobs were too loud for him to hear me.

"Tom. She wanted you dead. She will think you're dead if I tell her."

His hood came up. "You were going to kill me? Oh fuck, Nick.

Don't… please don't…"

"I'm not going to kill you."

He wasn't listening. "I'm so sorry, Nick. She made me ask those questions. You know, in the train station. She wanted to know if you were gonna stitch her up or what. I had to do it. She knows everybody's addresses and everything. The guy showed me pictures of my sister's kids. Honest, Nick, I wanted to tell you what was happening but…" His hood dropped back down as a new spasm took hold of him.

I felt like a priest in a confession box. "Tom, listen. Really, I'm not going to kill you. It was me who got you out of there, remember?"

There was a small nod from within the hood.

"I'll make sure that you and your family are looked after, Tom, but we have to get back to the U.K. first. You'll have to talk with some people and tell them exactly what's been happening, at Menwith and here, okay?"

I sensed an opportunity for everything to work out whichever way this went. I wasn't exactly sure how, but there had to be a way that Tom could get a new life and I could get my money. And if the money didn't materialize, at least I could still work for the Firm. I could come up with enough bullshit to make it sound as if I'd known all along what was happening, but couldn't tell anyone because of the security risk of someone printing off the information I'd told them in Russia.

Liv need never know that Tom was alive, and I could still pick up my money and then go to Lynn. I knew it was flimsy as plans go, but it was a start-assuming she didn't shaft me.

What was more important was getting out of Estonia. After that, I'd sit down with Tom, get the full story and sort my shit out.

"Why didn't she just tell me that it was you coming with me, rather than getting me to try and talk you into it? You were already coming, right?" His babbling before hadn't exactly explained it clearly.

"Fuck knows. You'll have to ask her. That's why I shat myself when I saw you. I thought your lot had heard about it. She's weird, mate.

Did she talk as if it was all coming from Valentin?"

"Of course."

"Well it isn't, she's talking about herself. It's all her own plans, mate, I'm telling you. If Valentin knew he'd cut her in half, know what I mean?"

Well, not quite in half, but I bet he'd have her watching a few squirming eels before he'd finished with her.

For all that, there was a part of me that admired what she was doing.

Maybe the man from St. Petersburg was her feed in Val's set up, leaking her information to set this whole thing up? What was in it for her? What was her goal in all this? Maybe Tom was right, it was everything that she had talked about? Question after question leaped into my head, but the snowflakes hitting my face made me remember that there were more pressing matters to attend to.

We had no shelter, no heat and now no navigation. The cold was getting to me as the sweat on my back began to cool rapidly now that we had been stationary for a while. Tom shivered badly where he sat curled up on the snow beside me. Both of us had inherited a layer of snow. We had to move, but in which direction? The marker would only be good for a hundred meters or so; after that, and with out Polaris, we'd get disoriented and spend the rest of the night walking round in circles.

I looked at Tom and felt him shivering in almost uncontrollable bursts.

His brain was probably telling him he must start moving, but his body was begging him to stay where he was and rest.

I lifted the cuff of various layers of clothing and had a quick look at the Lion King. Just under twelve hours to go until we should RV with the train. Even if I knew which direction to take, trying to cover that distance in these conditions without navigation aids would be madness. Visibility had worsened; it was down to about fifteen feet.

In any other circumstances we should have been digging in for the night and riding out the storm, but we didn't have the luxury of time. Quite apart from making it to a train, I didn't know what sort of follow-up the Maliskia would go for, and I didn't want to find out. Trying to think of a positive, I finally dredged one up; at least the snow would cover our trail.

Tom mumbled under his hood. "I'm really cold, Nick."

"We'll get going in a minute, mate."

I was still racking my brain for some sort of navigation aid. It had been years since I'd had to use or even remember any survival skills.

Scrolling through the pages of crap in my head, I tried hard to call up what I'd learned all those years ago. I'd never been one for all that hundred-and-one-uses-for-a-shoelace stuff; I'd just got on with it and only did the snow-hole and trapped-rabbit routine when I had to.

I put my arms around him. He wasn't too sure what was going on and I felt his body stiffen.

"It's a snow thing," I said. "We've got to keep warm."

He leaned in toward me, shivering big-time.

"Nick, I'm really really sorry, mate. If I'd told you the truth we wouldn't be in this shit, know what I mean?"

I nodded, feeling slightly uncomfortable. It wasn't all his fault.

I'd have tried to drag his granny over that fence if it would have given me half a chance of pocketing 1.7 million.

"I'll tell you the best thing I've found to get over all this cold stuff," I said, trying to sound as relaxed about it as possible.

From under the hood came a muffled, "What's that, then?"

"Dream, mate. Just think to yourself that this will all be over soon.

This time tomorrow you're going to be in a hot bath with a huge mug of coffee and a Big Mac with extra fries. This time tomorrow you'll be laughing about all this shit."

He kicked his heels into the snow. "That's if these poxy trainers stay on."

"Don't moan," I said. "They're better than those fucking stupid daps of yours."

He started to laugh, but it turned into a cough.

I looked up and saw nothing but blankets of white tumbling down at us out of the blackness. If I'd had access to a genie at that moment, the one thing I'd have wished for was a compass.

Jesus, a compass. A compass can be made from any iron metal. It should have been so simple, but it seemed to take me for ever to work it out: Tom had a faceful of the stuff in the rim of his parka hood.

Could I use it? And if so, then what? It was like trying to remember the ingredients of a particularly complicated cake I'd been shown how to bake twenty years ago.

I tried hard to visualize the process, closing my eyes and thinking back to all those times when I'd got so bored making shelters, traps, and snares with bits of string and picture wire.

Tom had other ideas. "Let's go, Nick, I'm cold. Come on, you said..

." He was clinging to me like a baby monkey on its mother's back. It was good, I needed him to warm me just as much as he needed me for reassurance.

"In a minute, mate. In a minute."

Something had to be in the memory banks somewhere. We never forget anything; it can all be brought back to the surface if you press the right button.

It happened. The trigger was remembering being given a silk escape map in the Gulf, with a needle pinned in it.

"Tom, are you still wearing those silk thermals?"

He shook his head. My heart sank.

"Nah, just the top. I wish I did have the bottoms, I'm freezing. Can we go now? You said to tell you, Nick, and I'm telling you."

"Hang on a minute, mate, I've just had a great idea."

I unwrapped my arm from him. As I moved, I was forcibly reminded of the awful discomfort of my wet clothing. My jeans clung to my legs and my T-shirt was cold and clammy.

I removed my glove, holding it in my mouth while I pulled out the Leatherman. Opening the pliers, I put the glove back on before the skin of my hand was exposed for too long.

"Look at me for a sec, would you, mate?"

The parka hood came up and the snow that had collected on it fell onto his shoulders.

Feeling around the frozen ring of fur with my gloved hand, I located the wire, then trapped it in the jaws of the pliers and squeezed until I felt it give. Teasing apart the material at the site of the cut, I exposed the metal, gripped one end of the cut with the pliers and pulled, grasping the exposed wire in my hand. I made another cut and put the two-inch strip inside my glove for safe keeping.

I thought Tom might have been interested, but he was concentrating one hundred percent on feeling cold and miserable.

Bending down some more, I peered into the darkness behind his hood. "I need some of that silk, Tom."

He shrugged. "I don't have to take it off, do I?"

"Just unzip your coat a bit more so I can get a hand in. I'll be as quick as I can."

His hands slowly came out of his pockets and fumbled for the zip. In the end I shoved both of my gloves between my teeth so I could help him; then, having battled with numb fingers to open the blade of the Leatherman, I felt under his shirt.

He sat there like a tailor's dummy as I pulled at his clothing. I didn't have enough feeling in my hands to be gentle about it, and he flinched as my freezing fingers gripped the silk and came into contact with his skin.

My nose was streaming as I grabbed a handful of the undershirt and started cutting, pulling so hard that I nearly lifted Tom off the ground. I wanted to make sure the material ripped, so there were loose threads dangling.

The knife jerked as it made its final cut. Tom yelped as the tip of the blade flicked into his chest. He sat there with an exposed finger over his little cut, the snow settling on his hand.

I said, "For fuck's sake, Tom, keep the heat in."

He pulled his clothing together, shoving his hands back in his pockets, and dropping his head. "Sorry."

"I tell you what," I zipped him up once more, "I'm going to be a couple of minutes doing diis. Why don't you do some exercises to get some heat going?"

"I'm all right. How much longer do you reckon to the train, Nick?"

I dodged the question. "Come on, move about, it'll warm you up."

He started to move as if he was snuggling under a comforter, but the only thing covering him was snow.

"No, Tom, you've got to get up and get your body moving. Come on, we haven't got that far to go, but we won't make it if you start seizing up." I shook him. "Tom, get up."

He hauled himself to his feet reluctantly as I brushed the snow from his shoulders. His fur rim was now a white ring of snow framing his face.

"Come on, with me."

Hands in pockets, we started to play aerobics with his back to the wind, squatting down and standing up again, elbows out, flapping like demented chickens.

I kept my head down, protecting it from the wind as I got him to keep in time with me. "Good stuff, Tom, now keep going, I won't be long." I got back on my knees and into cover.

It was gloves-off time again as I lay them in the snow. I crouched over to protect myself from the snowstorm; my hands were so numb that I had to pull threads from the silk with my teeth. Once I'd teased out a decent bit about five inches long I put it between my lips and fished out the needle-sized length of wire from my glove. Tying the loose end of the silk shakily around the middle of the metal, I finally managed a knot on the fourth attempt.

Richard Simmons next to me grunted and groaned, but was sounding a bit happier. "It's working, Nick. I'm getting warmer, mate!" He beamed, blowing out the snot from his nose.

I muttered encouragement through gritted teeth as I held the thread and wire, shaking the snow off my gloves and quickly putting them back on.

My hands were now so wet they stuck to the inners.

After trying to get some blood circulating by clapping them together for a while, it was gloves-off time yet again. As I bit on the free end of silk thread with my teeth, it seemed to take forever to grasp the dangling wire in one hand and the square of silk in the other. At last I began stroking the wire along the silk, repeating the motion over and over, always in the same direction. After about twenty strokes I stopped, making sure there were no kinks in the thread that would affect the balance of the metal once I let go.

I fished in my pocket for the flashlight, switched it on and put it in my mouth. Still crouching over it to make sure the wind wouldn't affect the thread and needle, I let go and watched it spin. The short length of wire eventually steadied, just moving slightly from side to side. I knew the direction of the North Star from my snow marker, which was now quickly disappearing in the storm, so all I had to do was identify which end of the wire, magnetized by the silk, was pointing north. I could tell the difference between the ends from the way the Leatherman had cut them.

The huffing and puffing went on behind me as I shivered and worked out what I was going to do next. Getting through this weather tonight was going to be a nightmare, but we absolutely had to be at that rail track by morning. In theory, moving cross country in these conditions was a huge blunder, but fuck the rules, it was too cold for them now. I didn't care about leaving sign; I needed roads to make distance, and besides, if Tom, or I, for that matter, started going down with hypothermia, we were more likely to find some form of shelter near a road. My new thought was to go west until we hit one, then hang a right and head north for the train track. One of the few things I knew about this country was that its main highway, and the one and only train track, ran east to west between Tallinn and St. Petersburg. The roads on either side were bound to make their way to it eventually, like streams toward a river.

Nobody was going to see the flashlight in this weather so I turned it on again and looked down as I let the metal drop and had another check to make sure it still worked. As the compass needle oriented itself, I realized that the wind was doing its bit to help. It seemed to be prevailing from the west, so as long as I kept it in my face I would be heading the way I wanted.

I was ready to go, gloves back on, the silk in my pocket, the compass thread and needle wrapped round my finger. I turned to Tom, who was squatting up and down with a vengeance, his arms swinging wildly.

"Okay, mate, we're off."

"Not long now, Nick, eh?"

"No, not long. A couple of hours, tops." ii The gale had become a blizzard, bringing close to white-cut conditions.

I was having to stop every ten or so paces, rubbing the needle again with the silk to reactivate the magnetic effect before getting another navigation fix. In this visibility there was no way I could keep us moving in a straight line. We were vaguely zigzagging west, still hoping to hit a road.

We'd been going for about forty minutes. The wind was still head on and its stinging cold made my eyes stream with tears. I had nothing to protect my face with; all I could do was bury my head into my coat for a few moments' respite. Freezing flakes blasted their way into every gap in my clothes.

I still led the way, breaking the trail, then stopping, though no longer turning, to allow Tom to catch up. When I heard him move up behind me I'd go on a few more steps. This time I did stop, turning my back to the wind, and I could just make him out coming toward me in the storm. I'd been so concerned about navigating that I hadn't noticed how much he was slowing down. I crouched over on my knees to protect the silk and magnetized the wire while I waited.

He finally got level with me as I was trying to stop the wind affecting the compass, which was dangling from my mouth. His hands were buried into his pockets and his head was down. I grabbed hold of his parka and pulled him down next to me, positioning him so he could give the compass some shelter, too.

I wrapped up the compass but this time didn't get to my feet, instead I just stayed where I was and shivered with Tom, both of us bent over in the snow. The snow that had built up on the outside of his hood had frozen, and my hat probably looked the same, matching the front of our coats.

"You okay, mate?"

It was a dumb question, but I couldn't think of anything else to say.

He coughed and shivered. "Yeah, but my legs are really cold, Nick. I can't feel my feet. We're gonna be okay, aren't we? I mean, you know all about this outdoors stuff, don't you?"

I nodded. "It's a fucker, Tom, but just dig deep, mate. It's not going to kill us." I was lying. "Remember what I said? Dream, that's all you have to do. Dream, and this time tomorrow-you know the rest, don't you?" His iced-up fur moved in what I took to be agreement as I added, "We'll be on a road soon and the going will get much easier."

"Will we get a car when we get to the road?"

I didn't answer. A nice warm vehicle would be heaven, but who would be mad enough to be out here on a night like this?

I struck out into the snow and he reluctantly followed. we had a result about twenty minutes later. I couldn't see any pavement, but I could make out the shape of tire ruts under the newly fallen snow, and the fact that the snow suddenly wasn't as deep as it had been everywhere else. It was only a single-lane road, but that didn't matter. It could be enough to save our lives.

I started to jump up and down on the spot to make sure I was right. Tom took a long time to catch up, and when he arrived I could see his condition had worsened.

"Time to sort yourself out, Tom. New phase, just jump up and down and get the body going." I tried to turn it into a bit of a game and he half-heartedly joined in.

It wasn't that long ago that he'd been crying. Now it was sarcasm.

"Not long to go now, I s'pose?"

"No, not long at all."

We started to make distance, huddling together at intersections to protect the compass. Whether a road ran northeast, northwest, or even due west, we took it. Anything to get us in the general direction of Tallinn and the train track.

After about three hours Tom had slowed down dramatically. I was having to stop more and more and wait for him to close up on me. The fight through the snow and the extreme cold had definitely got to him and he couldn't stop shivering.

He pleaded with me. "I've had it, Nick. Everything's spinning around me, mate. Please, we have to stop."

The wind whipped the snow against our faces.

"Tom, we must keep going. You understand that, don't you? We're fucked if we don't."

The only reaction from him was a moan. I pulled his hood apart so he could see me.

"Tom, look at me!" I pulled his chin up. "We must go on. You must help me by keeping going, okay?" I moved his chin again, trying to get eye-to-eye. But it was too dark, and every time the wind got into my eyes they started to water.

It was pointless trying to get any sense out of him. We were wasting time and losing what little heat we had by just standing still. There was nothing I could do to help him here and now. Our best bet was to get to the train track and make the final push to a station. I wasn't too sure how many miles we still had to cover, but the most important thing was to get there. I'd know when he'd finally had enough, and that would be the time to stop and take some action.

I grasped his arm and pulled him along. "You've got to dig deep, Tom."

We moved on, me with my head down and Tom past caring. It wasn't a good sign. When the body starts to go into hypothermia, the central thermostat responds by ordering heat to be drawn from the extremities into the core. This is when your hands and feet start to stiffen. As the core temperature drops, the body also draws heat from the head, circulation slows down and you don't get the oxygen or sugar your brain needs. The real danger comes from the fact that you don't realize it's happening; one of the first things hypothermia does is take away your will to help yourself. You stop shivering and you stop worrying. In fact, you are dying, and you couldn't care less. Your pulse will get irregular, drowsiness will give way to semiconsciousness, which will eventually become unconsciousness. Your only hope is to add heat from an external source-a fire, a hot drink, or another body.

Another hour passed. Soon I had to push Tom from behind. He took a few steps forward, stopped, and complained bitterly. I grabbed his arm and dragged him. At least the extra effort warmed me up a bit. The cold was taking its toll on me, too.

We moved on, painfully slowly. When I stopped to check direction, Tom couldn't help me any more; he just stood on the spot, swaying, as I turned my back to the wind, trying to create shelter for the compass.

"You okay, mate?" I shouted behind me. "Not far now."

There was no reply, and when I'd finished and turned for him he'd collapsed in the snow. I got him to his feet and dragged him on. He had almost no strength left now, but we had to crack on. Surely there couldn't be that far to go?

He mumbled to himself as I pulled him along. Suddenly he stopped resisting and ran forward with a burst of manic energy.

"Tom, slow down."

He did, but only to stagger a few yards off to the side of the road and lie down. I couldn't run to him; my legs couldn't carry me that fast any more.

When I got to him I saw that the sneaker on his right foot was missing.

His feet were so numb that he hadn't noticed.

Shit, it had been there minutes ago. As I'd dragged him along and protected my face from the wind, his sneakers had been the only things I'd seen.

I turned back down the road and retraced his quickly disappearing sign.

I found the shoe and trudged back to him, but getting it back onto his foot was not far short of impossible, my numb fingers trying to tie the laces which were frozen with ice. I touched my little finger to my thumb to make the old Indian sign that means "I'm all right." If you can't do that, you're in trouble.

"You've got to get up, Tom. Come on, it's not that far." He didn't have a clue what I was saying.

I helped him to his feet and dragged him on. Now and again he would shout out and summon up another burst of energy fuck knows from where.

It didn't last for long before he slowed down or fell back into the snow with exhaustion and despair. His voice had become a whine as he begged to be left where he was, pleading with me to let him sleep. He was in the latter stages of hypothermia and I should be doing something about it. But what, and where?

I pushed him on. "Tom, remember mate, DREAM!" I doubted he understood a word I was saying. I felt sorry for him, but we couldn't rest now. If we stopped for even a few minutes we might not restart.

It was about fifteen minutes later that we stumbled onto the railroad line, and only by chance did I notice it. We'd reached a crossing and I had tripped over one of the tracks. Tom wasn't the only one losing his core heat and spiraling down through the spectrum of hypothermia.

I tried to summon some enthusiasm to celebrate, but I couldn't manage any. Instead I shook him. "We're here, Tom. We're here."

No reaction whatsoever. It was obvious that what I said would make little difference to him now anyway. Even if he showed any awareness, what was there to get excited about? We were still in the shit-wet, freezing cold, with no shelter, and I didn't know how or where we were going to get on the train, even if it turned up.

He collapsed on the crossing next to me. I bent down and got my hands under his armpits, heaving him up again and nearly collapsing myself in the process.

He couldn't control his mouth or teeth and began to make strange snorting noises.

"We have to keep going just a bit further," I shouted into his ear.

"We have to find a station."

I didn't know any more whether it was him or myself I was talking to.

I turned him left, toward Tallinn.

We Staggered West. over the snow-covered gravel at the side of the track. At least the trees on either side gave us some protection from the howling wind. It was thirty minutes? an hour? since we'd got onto the track. I didn't know; I'd given up clock-watching long ago.

Tom started to go crazy, screaming at the trees, crying, apologizing to them, only to fall down again and try to cuddle up in the snow. Each time, I had to pick him up and push on, and each time it got a little bit harder.

We came across a row of small sheds, visible only because of the flatness of the snow on top of their angled roofs. We still couldn't see further than about fifteen feet and I didn't notice them until we were right on top of them.

I fumbled excitedly for the flashlight, leaving Tom on his knees, shouting at the trees that were coming to get him.

It seemed to take for ever to press the switch. Soon my fingers wouldn't be able to perform even a simple task like that.

I shone the light around and saw that the sheds were made of wood and built in the form of a terrace, the door of each facing onto the track.

Most were clamped shut with old rusty padlocks, but one was unlocked.

After kicking the snow away, I pulled it open and turned round for Tom.

He was curled up in the snow on the track and pleading to be allowed to sleep. If he did there would be no waking up.

As I gathered him in my arms, he lashed out with his final reserves of strength. He was having a fit. It was pointless struggling with him; I simply didn't have the energy. I let him drop to the ground and, gripping his hood with both hands, pulled him along like a sleigh, stumbling backward and falling over with the effort.

I didn't talk to him any more; I didn't have the strength.

The door was so low that I had to bend down to get in, and the roof wasn't much higher, but the instant I was out of the wind I began to feel warmer. The shed was about eight-feet square, and the floor was cluttered with bits of wood and brick, old tools and a rusted shovel with a half-broken shaft, crap from over the years lying on a frozen mud floor.

Tom just lay where I dropped him. As I put the flashlight down to give me some light I could see him curled up in a ball, his hands exposed, wrists bent as if he had suddenly developed severe arthritis. His short, sharp breaths mixed with mine and looked like steam in the flashlight beam. Not long now and he would be history unless I got a grip on myself and sorted him out.

If only this was a hunter's cabin, not a rail worker's shed. It's the custom in extremely cold climates to leave kindling in huts so that someone in trouble can rewarm themselves quickly. It's also the custom to leave a box of matches with the ends sticking out so that frozen, numb fingers can grasp them.

I got my gloves off and started to fantasize about warm train cars and hot mugs of coffee. I dragged over a lump of wood that looked as if it used to be part of the paneling. I then played about with my Leatherman with shaking hands, trying to pull out the blade. Once my soaking gloves were back on I started to scrape at the edge of the wood. I wanted to get to the dry stuff underneath.

Tom filled the room with his screams and cries. It was as if he was speaking in tongues.

I yelled just as loudly, "Shut the fuck up!" but wherever he was, it was a place where he couldn't hear me.

Once I'd cut away the damp stuff and exposed the dry wood I started to scrape thin shavings onto the shovel face. This was the under. My hands hurt as I tried to keep a firm grip.

Tom's body had started jerking around in the corner of the hut. We both needed to get this fire burning soon, but I couldn't rush what I was doing or I'd fuck up completely.

Next task was to cut kindling, a stage up from under, so that larger bits of wood could then be placed in the fire and stand a chance of catching. I picked up any sticks of wood I could find, and also pulled off some of the roof lining and tore it into strips. It would burn well because it was partly coated with tar. Then, with the rest of the small bits of wood, I started to make fire sticks, cutting very thinly into the side of the wood and pushing out the shavings until each piece looked as if it had grown feathers.

Tom was no longer thrashing around on the floor. Mumbling incoherently to himself, he was kicking out, as if fending off an imaginary attacker. It was pointless talking to him. I needed to concentrate on building the fire. Survival training might not be my strong suit, but I knew about fire. It had been my job to make up the one in the front room every morning before my stepdad got out of bed, otherwise it was slapping time. Usually it was slapping time anyway.

Once I'd prepared about five fire sticks I stacked them around the under like tepee poles. Then I got out my pistol, taking off the magazine and pulling the top slide to eject the round in the chamber.

Using the pliers of the Leatherman, I eventually pulled the heads off the three rounds and poured the dark grain propellant onto the under.

My hands were shaking as I poured, trying my best to get it over the wood and not the mud. I left the third round half full of propellant.

Tom's frenzied movements had dislodged his hood. Placing the round carefully on the ground so I wouldn't lose its contents, I got up and crawled over to him, my muscles protesting now that they'd had a rest. My cold, wet clothes clung miserably to me as I moved.

I got hold of his hood and tried to pull it back on. He lashed out with his arms, shrieking stuff I couldn't understand, his hands flailing around and knocking my hat off. I collapsed on top of him, trying to control him as I got his hood back up and my iced hat back on.

"It's all right, mate," I soothed. "Not long now. Remember to dream.

Just dream." But I was wasting time here. It was heat he needed, not bullshit.

Crawling back to the shovel, I dug inside my glove for the compass silk, held it in my teeth and cut some off with my Leatherman scissors.

Then, using the screwdriver, I rammed the cut silk into the half-empty case as wadding on top of the propellant.

I loaded the round into the weapon, pointed it at the ground, and fired. The signature was a dull oomph.

There was no reaction from Tom as I knelt on the ground to pick up a glowing, smouldering bit of silk. Once it was in my fingers I waved it about gently to fan the glow, then put it into the under. The propellant flared, lighting up the whole hut. I must have looked like a witch making spells.

Once the under had caught, I started inserting more little bits through the fire sticks into the flame. It wasn't yet giving out much heat; that wouldn't happen until the under was hot enough to ignite the fire sticks. I got in close and blew gently.

The fire sticks started to crackle and hiss as they released their moisture and smoke. I could smell burning wood. I fussed around the flames on my hands and knees, carefully placing wood for the best effect as the hut filled with smoke and my eyes started to water.

The flames were now higher and threw dancing shadows on the walls of the hut. I could feel the heat on my face.

I had to get more wood before all my good work was undone. I looked around and gathered up as much as possible from what was to hand. Once I'd established the fire, I'd be able to venture outside into the howling wind for more.

I kicked the door open slightly to get rid of the smoke. It let some of the wind and snow whistle in, but it had to be done. I'd block up most of the gap as soon as I could.

Tom was much quieter. I crawled over to him, coughing smoke from my lungs. I wanted to see if there was any wood under him or in the corner. There was; only a few twigs, but it all helped. I couldn't make a big fire as the hut was too small, and besides, we wouldn't need it; the walls were so close that the heat would bounce straight back on us anyway.

I checked the flames and started to feed on some more wood. "Not long now, mate. We'll be getting our kit off in a minute because we're so hot."

My next priority would be a hot drink, to get some heat directly to Tom's core. Placing the rest of the wood near the fire to dry it out, I turned and looked at his face. "Tom, I'm just going to see if I can find something to heat snow in for a "

He was lying too still. There was something very odd about the way his legs had now curled up to his chest.

"Tom?"

I crawled back to him, pulling him over and getting the hood off his face. Illuminated by the flames it told me all I needed to know.

Tilting his head toward the fire, I pulled open his eyelids. There was no reaction to the light. Both pupils stayed as fully dilated as a dead fish's. It wouldn't be long now before they clouded up.

I could hear the fire sucks now collapsing on each other, with glowing embers as well as flame. It was a wonderful sight, but it was too fucking late.

I tried his carotid pulse. Nothing. But that could be just my numb fingers. I listened for breathing and even tried his heart. Nothing.

His mouth was still open from when he had taken, or fought for, his last breath. I gently closed his jaw.

It was time to think about me. Pulling off my wet clothes, I wrung them out one by one before putting them back on.

I sat and fed the flames some more, knowing there were still things that I should do to him. I should try to resuscitate and reheat him until I was so exhausted I couldn't carry on, in the million-to-one chance he could be revived. But for what? I knew he was dead.

Maybe if we'd dug in for the night once the weather had closed in he would still be alive. We would have been in a desperate state in the morning, but maybe he would have survived. Maybe if I hadn't pushed him so hard to get here, or had realized what condition he was in and had stopped earlier. All these questions, and the only thing I was certain of was that I had killed him. I had fucked up.

I looked at his limp body, its mouth reopened, his long hair wet against his cheeks, the ice crystals on his peach fuzz now melting down his face. I'd try and remember a gabby but happy Tom, but I knew this image was the one that would stay with me. It was going straight to the top of the list of my sweaty, guilty, wake-upintheearly-hours nightmares. When I was put into the counseling program the Firm sets up for operators now and again, I'd told the shrinks I didn't have them. I was talking shit, of course. Maybe it was a good thing I was going to be part of Kelly's treatment now. I started to realize I might need it just as much as she.

Dragging him to the doorway, I sat him up against the gap, leaving a space of a foot or so above him for the smoke to escape. I covered his face with his parka.

Feeling was already starting to come back to my extremities and I knew I was going to be okay. All I had to do was find a station.

I turned back to the flames and watched the steam rise from my drying clothes. There would be no sleep for me tonight. I had to keep the fire going.

45

LDNDDN. ENGLAND

Wednesday, January 5,2DDD I was nursing a hot frothy Starbucks in the church doorway opposite the Langham Hilton, the only place I could keep a trigger on the hotel and also keep out of the drizzle.

It was breakfast time, and the sidewalks were packed with over coated wage slaves throwing Danish pastries and coffee down their throats, and shoppers out early for the after Christmas sales. Judging by the frenzy, it was clear the Y2K bug hadn't brought the world to its knees after all. It had been the last thing on my mind as I'd seen in the new century aboard an Estonian fishing boat, along with twenty six cold and seasick illegals from Somalia. Slipping away from a seaside village under cover of darkness, we'd battled across the Baltic in huge seas, heading for a peninsula east of Helsinki. Lion King told me it was midnight as we approached the Finnish coastline, where we were suddenly treated to one of the finest fireworks displays I'd ever seen.

The whole place seemed to light up as towns all along the shore celebrated the new millennium. I wondered if it held in store any new beginnings for me. Christ, I hoped so.

It was eighteen days since I'd left the hut and set off again into the blizzard. Tom had stayed behind, parka draped over his face, his body sterile of any item that could ID him. They probably wouldn't find him before the spring. I only hoped they'd give him a decent burial. If things worked out well here in London, maybe I'd go back and see to it all myself.

At first light, and without Tom, I was able to make distance at my own pace, even in the driving snow, and it was only a couple of hours before I hit a station about five or six miles away.

A train arrived heading west, toward Tallinn, but I let it go without me.

The one after that was heading east, toward Russia, and I climbed aboard. Without a passport it could take weeks to get out of Estonia on my own, but with Eight helping me, maybe it would be a different story. That was why I jumped off at Narva, and that was how I'd ended up on the fishing boat with my new Somalian friends. It had cost me all the dollars in my boot and had meant spending several uncomfortable days and nights hiding in the apartment with the land mines while Eight got things arranged, but it had been worth it.

Eight wasn't too happy about his car becoming history, but he still seemed thrilled to help me, even though he must have been aware of what had happened to Carpenter and the old guy in Voka, and put two and two together. I wondered if he gave a shit.

Eight didn't ask me again about helping him to escape to England, but as I stood on the jetty waiting to board the fishing boat, I turned to him and handed over Tom's passport. From the expression on his face and the tears in his eyes, you'd have thought I'd given him the three million.

I knew I was taking a big risk, but I felt I owed him that much. I just hoped he did a good job of doctoring Tom's picture, or that the day he tried to use it, immigration wasn't checking their computer screens too closely. Otherwise poor Eight would find himself being lifted by a team of heavies and whisked off to a 3x9 sooner than he could say "Crazy boy."

I'd told myself then that the passport was part of what I owed him for his help, along with a new car. But now, standing in London with a hot coffee in my hands and time to think, I knew it was more to do with trying to get over my guilt about Tom. I had pushed him beyond his limits in outrageous conditions and I'd killed him. Giving Eight the possibility of a new life was an attempt to square my conscience and make things right: The job was done, now cut away.

At first I thought it had worked and that things were all right. But I knew they weren't, not with Tom, not with Kelly. She was much the same; the New Year had passed her by, too. I'd phoned the clinic twice in the two days since I'd got back. I'd lied both times, telling them I was overseas but would be back soon. I was desperate to see her, but I just couldn't face it yet. I knew I wasn't going to be able to look her in the eye. Hughes picked up the phone the second time and told me that her plans for Kelly's therapy sessions, which included me, would have to stay on hold until I got back. I still felt confused about it.

I knew it had to be done, and I wanted to do it, but To add to the confusion, I'd also had a call from Lynn. He wanted to see me this afternoon. There seemed to have been a change of heart since our last meeting. He said he had a month's work for me. I'd been tempted to tell him where he could shove his 290 pounds a day, because if all went well with Liv this morning, I'd never have to depend on the Firm again. But there was no guarantee that she was going to appear, and though a month's pay wasn't much, at least I would be working instead of thinking.

The exchange was going to be simple. I'd opened a bank account in Luxembourg by telephone as soon as I returned to the U.K. The message I'd left Liv in the Helsinki DLB was that she'd be required to move the money electronically using a Fed-wire reference, which would guarantee the transfer within hours. When we met in the hotel in a few minutes' time, she would call her bank with the transfer instructions I would give her, and then we'd both just sit and wait until it happened. I would call Luxembourg each hour giving my password and would be told when the money had been deposited. In my own mind I'd set a cut-off time of 4 pm. If she hadn't turned up by then, I had to assume she never would. Then it would be decision time about her, and how to go about contacting Val to explain what Mr. and Mrs. Liv's little girl had been getting up to.

As my parting shot when I was sure the money had gone through, I'd toyed with the idea of revealing that I'd saved Tom's life and that he'd told me the whole story, just for the satisfaction of letting her know she hadn't outsmarted me. After all, I intended having nothing further to do with ROC. All I wanted was the money, and then they could carry on blowing up buildings and ripping peo pie's guts out for all I cared. Deep down, however, I knew that telling her would achieve nothing except to put me in the shit. She hadn't got as far as she had without damaging a few bodies, and I didn't want to be the next one on the list.

Twenty minutes before the RV time, a taxi pulled up at the hotel's main entrance.

As I watched, Sinbad stepped forward and opened the cab door, and I saw the back of Liv's head as she got out and went inside. We had the taxi between us, but I could see she had decided on the jeans today, together with her long leather coat, collar up against the cold.

I let her go in and watched for any surveillance or another vehicle pulling up shortly afterward. Neither happened. I waited, elated.

She was here. She wouldn't have come all the way to London just to announce that she was screwing me over.

The three million was now so close I could almost smell it. I had earned this money. No, after a lifetime of shoveling shit for peanuts, I deserved it. I'd been working hard to control my excitement as I stood in the doorway, but now I reckoned it wouldn't hurt to let myself enjoy the moment. I ran through my game plan one more time. As soon as the transfer was confirmed and Liv and I had said our goodbyes, I'd call the clinic and tell them that Kelly's new treatment could start straight away. It still worried me a bit, but I'd just have to get on with it. Who knows, I might even sort myself out.

Hughes had said there was no telling how long the therapy would go on for, so I'd been thinking it might be a good investment to buy a little apartment near by and sell it afterward. I could also start throwing a few builders at my house in Norfolk and get it sorted for when Kelly was ready to come home.

Less than ten minutes to go now. She still had to unload the DLB under the telephone, which held the keycard for the suite I'd booked. I'd also left instructions to place the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door handle once she entered. I waited and watched. There was nothing to see, apart from a woman getting splashed by a passing bus.

I could almost feel the three million between my fingers as I counted it in my mind. For about a millisecond I thought about giving Tom's share to some kind of charity. For a millisecond.

Because then I saw Kelly again, sitting like a frozen statue in the clinic and staring into space. Fuck it, she needed all the charity she could get.

With just two minutes to go, I dodged the traffic and approached the hotel. Sinbad wasn't there to help me as I pushed past the revolving doors and into the warmth of the foyer. The marble reception area was teeming with businessmen and tourists. I walked around them, past the Chukka Bar and the reception desk, then took the stairs.

I climbed to the third floor, opening my leather jacket and checking the position of the USP, tucked center front of my jeans. I'd gone back to Norfolk last night specifically to pick up a weapon, and had found myself mopping up the worst of the flooding that had come through the hole in the roof. Still, it wouldn't be long now before that useless tarp was replaced by solid Welsh slate.

Outside the door of Room 3161 stopped and listened. Nothing.

I pushed my own keycard into the lock and opened the door.

She was at the far end of the living room, her back to me, looking out of the windows that overlooked the main entrance. The door closed behind me with a gentle click.

"Hello, Liv, it's really good to "

I went to open my coat to draw down, but knew it was useless. The over coated body that had moved out from behind the cabinet housing the TV and minibar already had his pistol on me. The other body that sprang from the bathroom to my left was no more than four feet away, his weapon at my head.

I released my grip on the leather and let my arms drop to my sides instead of raising them. There could still be a chance to draw.

Liv turned toward me, only it wasn't her.

She spoke in a soft accent which I couldn't identify. "Step forward and keep your hands high in the air, please."

I did as I was told. The bathrooom man moved behind me and started to run his hands over my back and legs. It was pointless trying to bullshit them. As he removed my USP I couldn't exactly claim I was just delivering room service.

She said nothing as I was pushed from behind toward the sofa. Cabinet man stayed where he was, to my right. The other one was somewhere behind me.

The woman pushed past and headed for the door to the hallway. Her blond hair was dyed; I could see her brown eyebrows.

As she opened it I could see another over coated man outside. She left and he came in. He'd been there to block the exit if anything went wrong during the lift. It wouldn't have been hard for him to stop me.

He more or less matched the dimensions of the door.

Nothing was said as I sat and waited. But for what? I remembered Sergei's face in the 4x4 as he told me about the Viking's revenge. My heart was starting to pound big time.

Where the fuck was Liv? Had she been lifted too? Were these guys the Maliskia? The three square heads didn't speak or move. A feeling of dread came over me. Were they NSA? Was I really in Big Boy shit?

The pulses in my neck kicked up a gear and, not for the first time on this job, I could feel them pumping against my collar. The human door, who was still standing by the real one, must have seen it and recognized the feeling, because he gave me a knowing smile. I did my best to return it. Fuck 'em. I wasn't going to let them see how much I was panicking inside.

Long minutes that felt like eternity passed, then there was a knock.

The human door looked through the peephole, immediately reached for the handle, then stepped reverentially aside.

"Hello, Nick," Val said as he entered. With him was Liv's train station contact. They both wore dark-gray suits. "May I introduce Ignaty?"

Ignaty smiled and bowed his head slightly toward me. "Hello, Nick, I never managed to meet you personally at the station, but knowing so much about you, I feel as if we are old friends."

I nodded back, not wanting to say a word yet as my mind was too busy working out what the fuck was going on. I was scared, confused, and beginning to realize that I was in serious trouble. My best bet was to shut up and play stupid. That wouldn't be hard.

Val sat on the sofa opposite, while Ignaty stayed on his feet and fell in behind. The Chechen looked into my eyes for just a bit too long for my liking, and then he placed a large white envelope on the coffee table that lay between us. "That," he pointed, "is for you."

I reached for it, more confused than ever, and pulled open the flap.

He settled himself into the sofa and adjusted his suit pants before crossing his legs. Inside was a sheaf of documents in Cyrillic. I stared at them for a long time, not knowing what the fuck they were.

"They are deeds for two apartment blocks in St. Petersburg," he said.

"Their combined worth exceeds three million sterling. I thought you'd prefer an appreciating asset to cash."

My mental calculator was working overtime. I was a few weeks in credit with the clinic, but the bills would soon be racking up again. The three weeks that I'd been away would already have cost me 12,000, pounds and I'd soon be running on empty. One month with the Firm at 290 pounds a day would earn me precisely 8,700 pounds penceI might as well chance my luck.

"I'd rather have the cash. That was the arrangement."

He shook his head slowly, as if he was about to tell a child the trip to Disneyland was canceled. "But, Nick, there was no arrangement. Liv has been deceiving us both in pursuit of her own greed." His eyes suddenly went twenty degrees colder, demonstrating with a single glance why he was the top man to be afraid of in his line of work. "Thankfully some are not as disloyal." He waved his hand behind him.

Ignaty looked smug.

I stared at them, as if I didn't have a clue what he meant.

"It is quite complicated, Nick, and you really don't need to know the details. Suffice to say, not only did she betray the trust that I had placed in her, she has now made it virtually impossible for me to access the Echelon dictionaries for a very long time. The only reason you are still alive is that you thought you were acting on my instructions."

The smile returned. "Come, work for me in Russia and you can then take advantage of your new property portfolio. The rents are extremely high in that part of the city. This is a fantastic opportunity for you, Nick. There might even be time for us to get together so that I can explain this whole sorry affair."

I shook my head. "I have things that keep me here." I hesitated. "I really could do with the money instead."

He pointed to the envelope still in my hand as if I hadn't even spoken.

"In there are the details of a contact, here in the United Kingdom, when you wish to come to Russia."

He stood up, and everyone moved with him.

I had to ask. "How did you know I was here?"

Val stopped just as the human door was about to open the real one. "Liv told me, of course. She told me everything." He paused. "Before Ignaty…" He shrugged. His smile hadn't disappeared. He waited to see my reaction.

I bluffed it and looked even more confused, but in my mind's eye I saw her belly slit open and the eels writhing all around her.

"It shocks you?"

I shook my head.

"I didn't think so. You see, I cannot be seen to exhibit such a lack of judgment about the people close to me. I must show strength. You could help me do that when you come to Russia, Nick. Think about it, won't you?"

I nodded, just wanting him to leave.

"She did mention your apology for the deaths of my nephews."

I nodded. "Yes, I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I never really cared for my sister's family. I hope to see you in St. Petersburg soon, Nick."

As he turned to leave, I said, "Can I ask one more thing?"

He stopped.

"There's a body. My friend. It's still in Estonia and…"

"Of course, of course. We are not barbarians." Val waved a hand at the envelope. "The contact. Give him the details."

I lay on the sots far the next fifteen minutes, trying hard not to think about how long it must have taken Liv to die. It certainly took the edge off my enthusiasm for the St. Petersburg property market.

I needed the money, but I wasn't too sure about anything now, apart from the fact that the meeting with Lynn wouldn't be the best moment to fuck the Firm off.

I gave Val and his boys another five before walking downstairs and out of the hotel. Then I went into one of the phone booths under the scaffolding and fed in a fistful of coins as I picked up the receiver.

"Hello, East Anglian Properties. How may I help you?"

"James Main?"

"Speaking."

"Nick Stone here. Slight change of plan, James. I want you to sell the house as soon as you can, for anything you can get."

"But all the offers so far have been well below your purchase price.

You'd do much better if you got the roof finished and the interior work done, then put it on the market in the spring. It would be a-"

"Right away, James."

"But I was driving past the place only a couple of days ago and there's still a tarp over the roof. Really, nobody's going to offer anything like-"

"James?"

"Yes?"

"Which bit of right away don't you understand, for fuck's sake?"

I only had to put a twenty-pence piece in for the second call. It was to a London number.

"Still abroad, I'm afraid," I said when I was finally put through to Hughes. "Looks like I'm going to have to stay here for another month.

What effect would that have on Kelly?"

"Well, she won't get any worse, let's put it that way. She'll stay more or less exactly as she is until you can start the sessions with her."

Exactly as she is.

I closed my eyes and tried so hard to see her looking at me and smiling, but the only image that came to me was of her on that chair, her head strangely tilted, and sitting so still it was as if she'd stopped breathing, or had been frozen to death in an invisible blizzard.

I had hours to kill before seeing Lynn and so I ended up walking all the way to Vauxhall Cross. As I walked, I thought about the two other phone calls I might have to make very soon. One was to her grandparents, to break the news that they might have to sell their house as well, though there was more chance of being struck by lightning. They'd nodded and agreed so far that Chelsea was the best place for Kelly, but I bet they'd suddenly discover how wonderful the public hospital was when I told them they'd have to start shouldering some of the cost.

The other would be to the friend who'd put me onto the freelance job against Val. I'd ask him if he had more work going, and this time somewhere warm, like the Bahamas.

The same Asian guy ushered me into Lynn's office. Nothing had changed apart from the fact that Lynn had a different shirt on and wasn't writing this time. I stood in front of his desk. Once again, there was no coffee on offer, so I knew I was in for another short meeting.

"It's my last few weeks in post, and quite frankly the last person I wanted to see was you." He sat and stared at me, with an expression that said I was 100 percent responsible for his early retirement. I felt sorry for the mushrooms.

I knew to just keep my mouth shut and listen.

"Moonlight Maze," he said. "Do you know anything about it?"

"No." I felt the sharp pain in my chest once again. He knew what I had been doing. He knew and was letting me drop myself in the shit. I had to play along. "Well, not really. Only what I read in the papers a couple of weeks ago."

"That's about to change. Your job is to assist an NSA officer and his team while in the U.K. They will be here for about a month, trying to stop this darned ROC infiltration into Menwith."

I nodded, as if I assumed it would be a boring BGcumescortcumtour-guide job, which these things normally are. But I still had the feeling he was playing games with me. "Why me, Mr. Lynn? You said before Christmas that-"

"It has been deemed that the cost of your training and retainer is not being effectively utilized. Now get out."

I didn't know how he did it, but the door behind me was opened by the Asian guy right on cue. "Please, sir, follow me."

I did and we went up two flights in the elevator to the briefing area and into a sparsely furnished, unoccupied office. There were no windows and all I could hear was the noise of the forced air ducts.

"If you wait here, sir, the officer will be with you shortly."

The door was closed behind me. I sat against the desk and stressed. I was being set up.

As it opened again, I stood up and turned to face the person walking in. My chest pain returned with a vengeance. I had fucked up big time.

"Nick Stone, right?"

The Wasp was smiling at me as he held out his hand. His face looked like I'd gone at him with a pastry cutter. The bright-red, scabby scars around his face were held together with black sutures, along with patches of his scalp, where his hair had been shaved before the wounds were treated. His hands were in shit state, too, but they were all healing nicely.

"There isn't much time, Nick. Me and the team are going to need a lot of help here." He saw me looking at his scars and dropped the smile.

"Hey, I know. Not good. If I ever find the sonofabitch that did this, I'm gonna be pulling the ring back on one big can of kick ass...…"